Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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I certainly do not. You must be joking. We want lower retirement ages. Fair play to Deputy Brady for coming in. Our main job today is to say as a committee that this is an urgent issue for loads of people.

It is so because of the changes to the pension legislation.

Trade unions and others fought for years for a retirement age so that workers could retire, enjoy life and not be overburdened by work. One visits America and somebody serves people in a shop - a little granny, who can hardly stand as she gives people their change. She probably has three jobs because she could not survive otherwise. Obviously, we do not want that type of situation and it is probably why in some ways the unions have resisted changes to retirement ages. It was seen as a protection measure for workers. What we are trying to do is balance the situation because life has changed. People's health and expectations have changed, and we need to accommodate people's choices. I do not know how we do this, but it needs to be addressed because of the changes in pension schemes. It was a poor response by the Minister to state on Second Stage that it will cause problems for defined benefit schemes because it is precisely because of changes to pensions that many people are in this situation.

I support Deputy John Brady's point. I would like the committee to move this on as one of our equality legislation priorities. Many people would thank us for it. It is not really our job to correct the faults - the Department can assist us in that regard.

One area that will be important is what being capable of doing the job means. We certainly do not want those who should be at home and are not capable of doing a job being in there merely by virtue of the fact that one cannot get rid of them-----