Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was absolutely delighted when Sinn Féin selected this topic and recognised as an absolute priority the ending of the discrimination experienced by women in the pension system. The Government does not seem to recognise it as a priority. It would be wrong not to mention the atrocious treatment of pensioners under defined benefit schemes, including the Irish airlines (general employees) superannuation scheme, IASS; the Central Remedial Clinic, CRC, scheme and the Independent News and Media, INM, scheme. It must be addressed by way of fundamental legislative change, not by piecemeal measures, in order that solvent employers will not be allowed to walk away. It is interesting that the Minister has asked the Attorney General if she could intervene in the INM case. Clearly, he want to keep journalists sweet as he did not share the same concern or want to intervene in the CRC case, in which the issues were very similar.

Other Deputies have spoken about the fundamental unfairness for women who have hundreds more than the 520 PRSI contributions needed but who still do not qualify for a full contributory pension because of the ridiculous averaging system used. It is so bad that one would almost be forgiven for wondering if the system had been designed deliberately to have that impact. I will not reiterate the points made by other Deputies, but I shall point to the response one woman received from the Minister when she wrote about the fact that she was in receipt of a fraction of her full contributory pension because she had left work to raise her children. The Minister wrote to her and said:

When it comes to the view that this represents discrimination against women, it is worth being aware that ... it is a fact that women generally get more back from their PRSI contributions than men. This is particularly true for women with lower earnings and shorter contribution years, even though they may pay the same PRSI rate as men.

To me, that is an absolutely contemptuous indicator of how much the Department devalues the work women do in the home and in rearing children. She was told she was lucky to be in receipt of half of the pension paid to her male counterparts, despite the fact she had spent all of her adult life working. It is unbelievable.

I want to finish by reading an email from the husband of a woman living in my area. She is set to lose out on a full contributory pension because she was forced to leave the workplace when she got married. He puts it well in one or two lines:

My wife will qualify for the State contributory pension in October 2017 but will only receive about 84%. This is because she raised three children whose taxes are now being used to fund the State. It seems somewhat ironic that the State is now reaping the benefits of my wife's decision to be a stay at home mother while at the same time the State is punishing her for doing so.

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