Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all of the witnesses. Other speakers have touched on the pension system in terms of the historical context. The main concerns regarding the pension system were flagged in a Government Green Paper in 2007, which I would recommend. It deals with the first tier, second tier and third tier question. It was, of course, followed by the crash and so many of the issues highlighted and discussed therein were put aside. I understand some of the problems identified have become further embedded.

As stated, we do have some good redistributive elements within our pension system but we also have problems within our contributory system. The averaging system we had effectively served to penalise people who had the required number of years' contributions but not in a row. For example, in the case of people who had worked in their teens or 20s and who were then out of the workplace for ten or 15 years before taking up employment again, their pensions were lowered because of the averaging system. This particularly affected women because many of them had lower levels of contributions. This became more impactful in 2012, when we moved to lower the payments and we introduced new band systems, which in some cases severely reduced the pensions of people who had lower levels of contributions. This happened even though it had been acknowledged since 2007 that the system was not fair.

Another important issue is how care is recognised in our system. There is one small measure which addresses a tiny part of the problem in averaging, namely, the homemaker's disregard which was introduced in the mid-1990s. While this allows for a certain number of years in respect of homemaking or care to be discounted for the averaging process, the problem is that many of the women affected were out of the workforce between 1973 and the 1990s. Many women's organisation believe it is not sufficient to only have a disregard for care and that we should have a recognition for care through the introduction of a care credit or care contribution. This will be a challenge if we move to a second tier. For example, in introducing a universal supplementary retirement savings scheme, how do we ensure that care and other forms of contributions outside of employment are recognised in the system? Another concern on the universal supplementary retirement savings scheme is the increase in precarious work, which results in people having many more gaps in their work lifetime than was previously the case. If we move to a total contribution approach for the first year, or if we introduce a second-tier system, it will be important to find a way to ensure that care and other contributions are recognised. This is one challenge we will face, as well as the immediate challenge of how to rectify the unfair 2012 changes, which disproportionately impacted women who already were being treated unfairly by the system.

We have a non-contributory pension which is means tested. While it is positive that we have a non-contributory pension, because it is means tested it is not always a solution for women, as their partners may have means of some kind or may have a pension. There is a concern around financial independence for women and their being able to access money in their own right. Many of them may not qualify for the non-contributory pension, which means that in some cases women have no access to finance in their later years. These are some of the issues we are teasing out in Ireland. I am very interested in this area and I would be very interested to hear about some of the many measures that have been tried in Romania.

In regard to employer contributions, we do not yet have a formal system of employment contribution directly to pensions, as is proposed in regard to the universal supplementary retirement savings scheme. We are currently experiencing a problem with pay-related social insurance, PRSI, which I think is increasingly becoming an issue across Europe. In Ireland, employers pay a set portion of PRSI and employees pay another portion and this money goes into the Social Insurance Fund. We are experiencing a rise in bogus self employment, however, whereby people are categorising themselves as self-employed when in fact they are working with one employer who employs everybody on individual contracts and thereby can bypass the requirement to pay social insurance contributions on behalf of employees. We recently dealt with Opposition legislation, which was supported by the Government, to address the issue of bogus self-employment, which is a drain on our system.

On the point made by Ms Calista, gender equality is a key concern. I previously worked with the National Women's Council of Ireland. During that time, the council was constantly pushing Government to introduce gender and equality proofing of the budget, a measure it has since agreed to but is not yet in practice. It is important now to ensure that is done. Another key concern is lone parents. I would be interested in hearing what supports are in place in Romania for those who are parenting alone. This cohort of people experience high levels of deprivation and consistent poverty. There have been some changes to our system in this regard. As a committee, we produced a report, which I am sure can be shared with the witnesses, recommending changes in this area. I am sure that report would be of interest to the witnesses.

In regard to disability, my colleague in the Seanad, Senator John Dolan, is head of the Disability Federation. I can provide the witnesses with his contact details if they so wish. The issue of child protection was mentioned. A very positive development in this area was our referendum on the rights of the child. It applies across all areas in that in any issue that affects children, the child's individual rights rather than the rights of his or parents or family must be considered. That referendum was a major change in Ireland in recent years.

In regard to the point made by Mr. Vexler on minority groupings, we are just pushing towards legislation on sign language recognition. We are starting that journey in Ireland. There are issues facing particular groups. The Traveller and Roma communities in Ireland face issues related to social protection and so on. I would be interested in hearing Mr. Vexler's views on Ireland's habitual residency condition, which requires people to have been two years in Ireland and contributing thereto before they are able to access social protection, which affects everybody and not only minority groups. Perhaps we might hear from the embassy on the impact of this condition on the Romanian community here, which, I think, is approximately 35,000. On the cultural issues, I would be very happy to discuss them later over lunch.