Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy plays the politics of this but she knows full well, because I have said it and her own legal advice will confirm it, that emergency legislation cannot selectively penalise a particular cohort of public service pensioners. It would collapse the Bill constitutionally. The Deputy knows that but that does not stop her playing politics with it. Accordingly, the proposed amelioration under the Bill of the PSPR will apply to all impacted retired public servants on a basis that is indifferent to the vocational background of the pensioner, as it has to be because that is the constitutional advice we have.

It is interesting that during the debate last night, Deputy Healy made a passionate speech from the Opposition benches in which he said his advice was that pensions enjoyed preserved rights under the Constitution and any reduction, once we begin to emerge from the emergency, would collapse this Bill. I have, therefore, taken a prudent and careful line. The maximum restoration anybody will get on either a low or high pension will be the same but I have ensured that there will be a 28% reduction for those on the top pensions and that it will not be touched by this legislation.

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