Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for the work they have done. I have to confess I have not yet read the 244 pages, although I will do so over Christmas, because a lot of stuff comes in all the time. There is a lot of daily work in this job and I just did not have the time with all the other commitments.

Can Ms Feehily quantify the savings the Pensions Commission estimates because people have been encouraged to work longer and, therefore, make contributions into the system for a longer period? What savings would arise because pensions would not be paid to anybody over 66 until he or she got to the new pension age? That is a crucial question that goes to the nub of a big problem that will arise if you start raising the pension age.

I confess I am over the pension age, but the kind of job I do means I do not have to lift blocks every day, I do not have to plaster ceilings and I do not have to do lots of things that I might not feel up to. I feel up to what I do. One of the big problems of this is that there is a large cohort of people who by the time they come to their mid-60s are unfit for the work for which they are trained to do. It is a phrase they use for invalidity pensions, etc., that we are all familiar with on this side of the House. When people get to a certain age, they no longer can do the work. This can involve people who have to spend long hours standing in retail, etc., and have problems. It is fair to say that for a fair number people general wear and tear - they might not be very ill in the conventional sense - means they cannot do their jobs. For example, the Army will not keep people after a certain age. An Garda Síochána does not keep people after a certain age, and it would be younger than the normal retiring age. It is because these jobs require physical agility and ability. People of 65 to 67 years of age will not be kept in the ranger unit. That is an extreme example, but this is well recognised by the State. We often allow teachers to retire early because they are burnt out after 40 years in the classroom, etc.

What do you do? What do you say to these people when they come in to you? What are we meant to say to these human beings? Should we apologise and say that they are really meant to be working until they are 67 or 68 years of age? That is the dilemma. Is it to try to encourage people to work for longer or is it a cash saving and, if so, how much?

Of course, there was a third way round this that does not seem to have been examined. I have to confess I have not read the whole report, and maybe it was examined. Did the commission examine returning to the concept of the State pension transition? The idea of the State pension transition is that if you retired and you were not earning a substantial amount of money - you could earn a very small amount - you could get the State pension but if you continued to be employed, you could not get the State pension. Was that looked at, because one of the big disappointments is that people worked? It is interesting and key that one trade union representative did not sign off on the age increase because that particular trade unionist would have been familiar with the human problem that really came to the fore in the last election, that is, all the people who cannot physically continue to work after their mid-60s and were looking forward to retiring having put in 40 years' very hard work.

The second question I have is a technical one because it is a change of policy. When total contributions were first mooted in 2008, the policy was 30 years' contributions. The 40 years' contributions came in when the carer's credits came in. What made the commission decide on 30 years' contributions versus 40 years' contributions? Even during the previous Government, when I asked the former Minister, Senator Regina Doherty, about the transition from 30 years' contributions to 40 years', the replies I got fudged the issue and stated that it only applied where you were claiming the carer's credits and that no decision had been made in terms of people who had worked or drawn credits for the 30 years. When did that morph from 30 years' contributions to 40 years' contributions as a general policy as opposed to a specific policy? It was introduced to deal with the reduction in the payments to people who did not have the full average. The commission is obviously making a firm recommendation. Was the Department providing the data working as 40 years' contributions as a given, even though to my knowledge that policy was never decided on? As I said, the only policy that was decided on was 30 years' contributions.

I agree with Ms Feehily about the self employed. Even at the very beginning, on an actuarial basis, it was way better at 4%. As the commission pointed out repeatedly, the biggest cost for social welfare is the contributory State pension and, therefore, the adds-on are not what have added the costs.

It is fair to say it is the best value, as Ms Feehily pointed out. You pay your tax and your USC, which, God knows, was only meant to be a temporary provision. It is like income tax, when Wellington introduced it the first time as a temporary expedient. It has had a long legacy after him but USC was in the same vein. It was meant to get us over a little hump. It is something we should grasp the nettle on and I agree with Ms Feehily there.

I have probably said enough. My big issue is the human issue. This increase in the age does not factor in all of those people, many of whom get out of full-time work earlier on and are on invalidity pensions or whatever and cannot reasonably be expected to work after 66 years of age. Pushing it from them is really pushing it.