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

I welcome the motion tabled by Sinn Féin. It is timely, given the recent attacks by Mr. Denis O'Brien and Mr. Dermot Desmond on the pensions of workers in Independent News and Media. I express the solidarity of the AAA-PBP to those workers and the thousands of others whose pension benefits and rights to a decent pension are now being questioned and attacked as unrealistic. I note the counter motion tabled by the Government and must say how pathetic it is. It is part of a wider narrative to place the issue of pensions in a certain light. We are told that because people are living longer, it is a problem, not something to be celebrated. We can only fund pensions from a fixed pot of money. That is a problem. If we increase payments in one category, it means that we must cut payments for some other category. That is a problem.

According to the Government, that the poverty rate among pensioners is lower than other groups is a problem. This might partially explain its heroic efforts in the recent past to increase the poverty levels of pensioners. The very idea of a decent pension after someone's working life is seen as a threat to the economy and is no longer realistic, except, of course, for people in this House and in particular for Ministers.

While Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were congratulating themselves on giving pensioners an extra fiver a week, the actual policy of this Government and previous ones has been to undermine, cut and reduce the entitlements of workers to a State pension and to force them to work longer. When I raised the issue with the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, he suggested the policy on changing the bands for a contributory pension was motivated by a desire to be fair to those who had worked longer. Like most of what Minsters say on any of these issues, it is totally disingenuous.

My amendment to the Social Welfare Bill on this issue was ruled out of order. We could have made changes without having to continually battle on this issue, but it was ruled out of order by the Minister.

The purpose of those changes was to save the State costs. The State is very keen to make savings at the expense of workers but still bails out bankers to the tune of more than €8 billion a year plus interest and refuses tax due from Apple. By changing these bands the State will save €50 million in 2017 and €10 million in each subsequent year. By scrapping the transition pension, the State saves €75 million to €80 million a year. By increasing the paid contributions needed for a contributory pension to €520 the State saves €6 million a year, which is a nice bit of piggybank pocketing.

Of course, as the years goes by and workers have to work until 68, more millions will be saved by the State. This money is taken from the pockets of pensioners. It will not be used to fund other essential services despite the self-serving platitudes of various Ministers because there is still a huge shortage in hospitals, education, special needs, etc.; it is not filling a hole.

Regarding the "problem" of people living longer, what is often missed in this debate is that workers living longer than the past generations are fully paid for in financial terms because in recent decades Irish workers have become increasingly productive, based on the statistics. It is entirely possible to maintain and improve the pension entitlements of workers who are living longer, but we cannot do it if we continue to widen the inequality in the share of national wealth going to workers in terms of wages and pensions compared with the share going to the wealthy in capital and profits. That goes to the core of the so-called crisis in our pensions. It is not the greater longevity of the workforce or the people, or trying to balance different groups' interests, but the fact that a greater and greater share of the national wealth goes to the wealthy rather than to social services or to workers' wages. That is what is happening. It is very clear from the way Independent News and Media treated its workers and pensioners. What is happening at State level is reflected throughout the workforce.

I again mention the €3 billion we are rejecting from Apple and the countless billions we are refusing to take in taxes from REITs, multinational corporations, the hospitality sector and from the load of wealth that exists in this country. This is the root cause of the crisis in pensions.

This debate is timely, in a week in which the shareholders of Independent News and Media sanctioned a smash and grab of their workers' pensions in order to improve the financial position of Denis O'Brien and Dermot Desmond. These are two people who do not by any stretch of the imagination need more money. It is timely that we set out a rejection of the logic of a State that thinks forcing working people to work longer for less and discriminating against workers is a just cause or makes economic sense.

I wish to outline the one peculiar and outrageous example of how the State thinks discrimination against women is acceptable, which goes to the heart of this motion. Some months ago when dealing with a constituent I was amazed to discover that the State believes that it is acceptable to discriminate against women, because it is overwhelmingly women who raised families in this country before 1994. The State made the adjustment to take into account the homemakers after 1994 and to penalise those who made their home before 1994.

We have legislation that recognises that workers may take time off from the workforce to raise families. While the State will take those years into consideration when calculating their contributory pension, it will not do this for women who raised families before 1994, which is ridiculous. It is discrimination on a gender basis and on an age basis. Many women, who recently retired and who raised families in the decades of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, in an era when women generally began their families much younger, suffered greatly in this State under a range of headings and now find their expected contributory pension has been reduced, often by as much as €30 a week. This is insulting and hurtful, and must end.

I do not accept the argument that if we correct this discrimination we must hit some other vulnerable group. This is nonsense to mask the State's contempt for these women and to try to justify the taking of €30 a week from women who worked for decades and paid their contributions to the State.

The revealing aspect of this debate is that the State is willing to legislate to discriminate and take money from some of the most powerless groups in our society at a key stage of their life. Let us compare it with the lethargy and slowness to legislate for rent controls or to deal with corporate fraud. There is a stark contrast in how we deal with one group as against the other.

I welcome the debate and, of course, we support the motion. This is not the end of the issue. It will require campaigning, people power and political pressure to put an end to this blatant discrimination.

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