Dr. Barra Roantree:

The Deputy is absolutely right that there is a risk that pension poverty rises again if the State pension does not keep track with the broader living standards of the population.

We are at the point where we may be starting to see pension poverty creep back up again for certain groups of pensioners. The point I was making in the article in The Irish Timesto which Deputy Ryan referred was just how phenomenal an achievement it was that, as a country and a society, over the 2000s almost one in two pensioners was below the poverty line but that that decreased to less than 10% over the course of a decade. The reason for that was a political commitment to the living standards of pensioners, and the policy instrument that was used to fulfil that was increases in the State pension. It rose over that period by, I think, 50% in real terms, after accounting for inflation, so substantial increases in the State pension were made over the 2000s and they were remarkably effective in not entirely eradicating but certainly massively reducing pension poverty.

Again, the point I was making in the article was that there is now a huge issue with the living standards of younger adults, particularly those who have emerged from education in the face of the financial crisis and the recession that followed it and now Covid. If we want to address that, and that, ultimately, is a political decision, we need the political commitment to do so. There are ways to address it. We need sustained action on housing, which is a completely different conversation and one to which my colleagues in the ESRI have contributed fulsomely. We also need to be sure that, as we emerge from the pandemic, the supports are in place for younger adults to retrain, if necessary, into the jobs that will be there. Also, younger adults need to be supported with their incomes and living standards as we emerge from this pandemic because they are the ones who have been worst hit by the labour market impacts of the pandemic.