Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 9, after line 31, to insert the following:

“Investigation Report

11. The Minister will provide a report to the Dáil, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, investigating the possibility of lowering the age at which citizens can access their State pension, in accordance with the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, to the age of 65.”.

I will say a few words to explain the rationale behind the amendment. The amendment requests the Minister to "provide a report to the Dáil, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, investigating the possibility of lowering the age at which citizens can access their State pension ... to the age of 65.”

We in Sinn Féin believe that after a lifetime of work, people deserve the right to retire on a pension rate at 65 years or to continue to work, if they choose to do so because accessing the State pension at 65 years, as the Minister will know, was abolished by Fine Gael and the Labour Party in 2013. That is an absolutely dreadful thought for anyone who are on their feet all day such as waiters, waitresses, hairdressers, carpenters, farmers and many other employees. We, in the Dáil, can only imagine how tiring these essential jobs are and we are lucky not to be on our feet so much. Many of us will have done those jobs in our teenage years but to have to work like that up to the age of 65 or beyond is quite gruelling and can have an impact on people's health and well-being.

We are elected to represent the people and I have yet to hear a constituent tell me they do not think they should be eligible for a pension at the age of 65. That is the reason I ask for a report to be in the Dáil within six months to re-examine at that. It should be re-examined in the context of some of the reneging that has been done with workers' rights, the living wage, enhancing sick pay, abolishing the sub-minimum youth rates of pay, increasing minimum annual remuneration for employment permits and pension auto-enrolment. I would like to see this section inserted into the Bill and that is what I propose here today.