Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

The displays of cynicism and the U-turns by the Government only a few months into office are truly staggering to behold. The Social Welfare and Pensions Bill is simply the latest and most sophisticated of these displays of cynicism and political U-turning. It is unbelievable that the Bill has approximately 19 serious measures, some complex but all far-reaching with significant impacts for wide layers of our society, especially the less well off, and that the Government is trying to ram through these measures in two days and guillotine a proper debate on what is dense and complex legislation. This is to the point where even the normal facility afforded to Members, whereby they receive a digest of the different issues surrounding legislation, has not been afforded us. The library service has been unable to produce a digest such is the short timespan between publication of the Bill and the debate in the Dáil.

It is obvious in this regard that this is a deliberate attempt to ram through unpalatable legislation. This is first and foremost because the IMF and EU, our masters in Europe, are demanding that the country is sucked dry to pay back the bankers and bondholders who wrecked our economy. They demand that this goes through and, therefore, proper procedure and democratic debate is subverted to ram through the Bill and to ensure there is minimum debate on it. We have seen a display of cynicism by the Government in the way it has tried to create a smokescreen for that fact by throwing the measure of restoring the minimum wage into the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill where there is no proper place for such a welcome measure. It does not belong in this Bill. The Government is well aware of this and the wry grins and smirks from the Government front benches when the matter was being discussed on the Order of Business today was indicative of the conscious knowledge of the members of Government. They know this is an act of political cute hoorism to try to create a smokescreen for what is in fact an unpalatable attack on working people carried out under the diktat of the EU and the IMF.

Furthermore, this is a pathetic substitute for the failure of the Government to deliver on its pre-election big talk about jobs and getting the country working. None of this is being delivered. In fact, everything the Government is doing moves in the opposite direction. We have seen the attempt to try to present all of this in some sort of positive light by playing up the restoration of the minimum wage to cover up the other sins of the Government. All of this is being done but, meanwhile, the Government is planning an assault on the low-paid workers it claims to protect by restoring the minimum wage in terms of plans to dismantle wages and conditions for the lowest paid workers in the country.

In terms of the substantive elements of the Bill, the attack on the retirement age and the demand that people work longer is an outrage and scandal. Ordinary working people will be forced to stay in employment longer in order to pay back the bankers and bondholders who wrecked our economy. That is the bottom line. As Deputy Ó Snodaigh observed, low paid and manual workers will suffer most as a result. Those without private pension arrangements and who work in the most difficult jobs will be forced to continue working for one, two or three additional years beyond the current pension age by the time all of this is phased in.

This will have a detrimental effect in terms of providing jobs for younger people, which the Government claims it is seeking to do, because the more one forces people to continue working in order to qualify for the State pension, the fewer jobs there are available at the other end for young people entering the jobs market. The reduction in employers' PRSI in respect of the first €356 of workers' pay is essentially an attempt to pin down wages to the lowest level. This legislation is about working people being made to work longer and harder for less in order to pay back the bankers and bondholders. The Department is to be given the power to hound and harass people who are unemployed through no fault of their own and who seek to avail of social welfare entitlements in a situation in which there are no jobs for them. The Government should tax the wealthy and invest in real jobs programmes instead of attacking working people and harassing those who are dependent on social welfare through no fault of their own.

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