Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will address my comments to the "shadow" Minister, because the real Minister is not here.

The confidence and supply agreement cements Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents together. They congratulate themselves on an extra fiver in social welfare in the budget. However, changes in our welfare code across the board are still resulting in inequalities and injustices. I endorse what my colleagues said about the lone-parent's allowance, the carer's allowance and the discrimination against young people. I want to talk about another injustice that has fallen under the radar. I highlight the changes in the system for contributory pensions introduced over recent years. These changes and scrapping the State transition pension have taken a lot more money from the pockets of our pensioners and old than the amount by which it is proposed to increase their pensions.

At an overall cost to the State is €170 million, the new rates for contributory pension will be €238 at the top for those under 80 and €248 for those over 80. The non-contributory pension is €227. Therefore an entitlement to a State pension at 65 has been removed for thousands of working people because the State transition pension was abolished in 2014. While I understand the argument made earlier on that people should be allowed to work longer if they so wish, this is a forced situation. For many workers where the State tells them they are not entitled to benefit until they are 66, their contracts of employment state that they must retire at 65 and for that year they must seek jobseeker's allowance. Furthermore, the introduction of the new method of calculating how a retiree can qualify for the maximum contributory pension - this is complicated - means a reduction in the level of State pension for many newly retired people compared with what they may have expected.

The number of bands used to calculate the entitlement has now expanded to six. The required yearly average contributions have changed such that many will now find their pensions lower than the expectations they had. Increasing numbers of people are failing to reach the required yearly average contribution to be entitled to any form of a contributory pension. One band was effectively replaced with three new bands. The justification for this was to reward those with greater yearly contributions, but it has simply punished those with less.

For example, before 2012 a person with 20 to 47 average yearly contributions got the second category of contributory pension. Now a person with 20 average yearly contributions falls into the fourth category and is therefore penalised. These changes since 2012 mean many of those qualifying for contributory pension, which are still rising because of demographics, are qualifying for reduced pension entitlements. The differences in payments for old-age pensioners who fall foul of this is considerably more than a fiver a week on which Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents are congratulating themselves.

These changes will save €50 million in 2017, rising by €10 million annually. The State pension transition payment was abolished saving €137 million. This money is taken from the pockets of those pensioners affected. It is shocking.

Many women now retiring, who may have worked consistently for decades before retiring, find their pension is significantly less than they may have expected. This is partially explained by the home-making rules and by discrimination against woman who raised their families in the years that were removed before 1994. While years spent out of the workforce since 1994 for the purpose of raising a family and children can be discounted against the overall number of years that the calculation is based on, for the generation of women who had to leave the workforce before 1994 to raise a family, the years they spent raising their children is not discounted against the overall number of years used when calculating the pension entitlement, in other words the years from when they first entered the workforce to the year they retire.

This effectively makes it impossible for this cohort of woman to meet the criteria for getting the maximum contributory pension of 48 yearly average contributions or even to get between 30 and 40 for the next bracket in the scheme. The rates applying to the categories are as follows: the top rate is €233 a week; in the next category for those with between 40 and 47 yearly average contributions it is €228; for those with between 30 and 39 yearly average contributions it is €209 a week; and for those with between 20 and 29 yearly average contributions it is €198. I know it is complicated. God help me, I worked for hours trying to get my head around it after many questions to the Department and very helpful officials working with me.

These women have to work longer to get the contributory pension, often in very difficult and physically demanding jobs. It is impossible for woman who left for a period of time to raise their children in the late 1960s and 1970s to effectively reach a full contributory pension. This is the argument here.

I will mention the cases of two women, Lillian and Jean, who left their jobs in the late 1960s to get married and rear families, as people did in the day. Through the 1970s and up to the mid-1980s they spent their time as homemakers. Having worked from the mid-1980s right up until this year - a continuous period of 30, 32 or 33 years, they will now get a State contributory pension of €209 a week rather than the €230 they expected.

I signal my intention to table an amendment to the Social Welfare Bill to go some way towards correcting the injustice to that cohort of women. My amendment proposes to make this scheme available to any woman who had to leave the workforce regardless of the years - prior to 1994 and subsequently. This is a blatant injustice and many pensioners find themselves living on reduced State pensions despite having worked and contributed in full for years.

I reiterate that the cost to the State of the extra fiver a week is €170, but this is being wiped out by penalising women, such as Jean and Lillian, who worked full-time for more than 30 years from the mid-1980s until 2015 or 2016. It is not fair and is a kick in the face for those hard-working women, who have now retired and realise that they are not worth their salt to the State.

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