Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to raise this matter which concerns an anomaly resulting from the decision to abolish the State transition pension from 2014 and what I believe to be a group of forgotten pensioners. The Government aims to save €60 million in a full year following the abolition of the State transition pension from next year. The effect is that, instead of a State pension being available to certain retired persons at the age of 65 years, from next year they will not be able to qualify for a State pension until they reach the age of 66 years. Based on the claim pattern of transition pensioners in recent years, we know that approximately 15,000 people are affected by this change. These are individuals who would have qualified for the transition pension up to the current year but who will not now qualify. Again, based on claim patterns in recent years, approximately 2,000 will be in the position where they have left work and have no entitlement to a State pension. These figures would be expected to grow in the coming years because of the demographics involved but also because it is planned to further raise the State pension age to 67 years in 2021 and 68 in 2028. Most of these 2,000 workers will be in a position where they will be forced to retire at 65 years, arising from long-standing contractual arrangements with their employers, but will be without a State pension on which to fall back. In some cases, they will, of course, be entitled to some form of occupational pension and, in others, some of them may, in fact, be able to find alternative work. In a great many cases, however, they will simply be left stranded. It will mean that many will be forced to sign on the dole for one year in order to have income support. They will face the ridiculous situation where, at the age of 65 years, after years of employment and, in some cases, a lifetime of unbroken employment, they will be forced to endure a gap year before the State will step in with a pension entitlement. They will be considered too old to work by their previous employer but too young to claim a pension from the State. As a recipient of jobseeker's benefit, they will be subjected to the same activation measures required of those genuinely seeking work.

They will end up competing for work and training places with much younger jobseekers.

The live register figures will be inflated next year, artificially raising our headline rate of unemployment. This is not just a problem in 2014 but will be a problem every year afterwards and will grow even worse as the retirement age is further extended. In 2011, the Government was forced by the troika to legislate to raise the pension age. I accept that there was nothing it could do about that. However, it has done very little since then to address the anomaly that has arisen as a result of that legislation.

It is outrageous that the State would effectively turn its back on people who have worked all their lives and tell them that now they have reached the age of 65, they must go on the dole. This is a real insult to that group of people who, in many cases, have worked all their lives. They are very much the forgotten pensioners, ignored by both Departments responsible for labour law and social protection. I call on the Minister to ensure this issue is addressed before the abolition takes effect from January 2014. It is simply too insulting to those people involved and it is a disgrace that there is no plan in place to address this serious anomaly.

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