Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Good morning to Ms Feehily and other members of the commission. I will be brief. I have an observation and one or two comments to make. I thank the commission for this extraordinary body of work. I am of the Deputy Ó Cuív school, in that I am familiar with the headline details but not the minutiae of the report. The background is the decision to raise the pension age to 67 in 2021 and 68 in 2028 that was made by the Government led by then Taoiseach Enda Kenny between 2011 and 2016.

A fundamentally dishonest debate was held in the midst of the most recent general election campaign, during which voodoo economics prevailed and nobody was prepared to stand up and say that more people cannot qualify for payment from the Social Insurance Fund without an increase in contributions. Some even advocated for reduced contributions. People should not have been told that more will qualify for pensions equivalent to those being paid today or increased pensions. That is a fundamentally dishonest position. There was further dishonesty from some who voted for an increase in the pension age in Northern Ireland from 65 to 66, which came into effect last year, but who, in June of this year, voted in this jurisdiction to reduce the pension age to 65 and argued that the only cost of that was €120 million to the Social Insurance Fund. Those positions are dishonest. The report is stark in its detail and what is abundantly clear is that we face a difficult challenge. The Social Insurance Fund will be in deficit to the tune of more than €3 billion, and growing, by 2030 if we do nothing.

I appreciate the fantastic piece of work that has been carried out under the stewardship of the chairperson of the commission and by all of the members of the commission. Why does Ms Feehily believe that the proposal in the commission's report, which, if I understand it correctly, is for an incremental increase in the pension age to 67 over the period to 2031, and to 68 some time thereafter on an incremental basis, will be in any way more acceptable than the lead-in time envisaged in the original legislation to raise the pension age to 67 and 68 in 2021 and 2028, respectively? These are difficult issues. We must all face up to the realities. People are living longer, which is a fantastic achievement in our lifetime, and, consequently, they are active and healthier in society for much longer. That brings challenges with it. Meeting those challenges has significant economic consequences with which we are grappling. Why does the commission believe its proposals will be more politically palatable than those that were outlined and legislated for previously? I again thank the commission. It has made a fantastic contribution to a very challenging area.

Ms Burke alluded to policy levers relating to fertility and the requirement of additional migrant workers. Is the argument around migrant workers not bogus? If we bring in more workers and have more people paying in, they will fund the pension entitlements of those who are hitting the pension age either now or in the near future. However, future pension liabilities for those workers are also being incurred. I accept we have labour shortages and requirements for non-EEA workers to fill vacancies here but that migrant worker argument is short-termism. It is unsustainable in the long term. Through their contributions, those workers are creating an entitlement to social welfare benefits, possibly including a pension entitlement.