Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome this Bill and commend my party colleague, Deputy Brady, for bringing it to the House. The Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, mentioned that other Bills are being prepared. I do not think anyone really cares what name is on the Bill. The most important thing is for legislation in this area to be moved through both Houses and to come into effect. The Minister of State mentioned that this issue was considered by a committee he chaired in the last Dáil. I have read through many of the comments that were made to that committee in 2014. We are now in 2017. We do not want four years to pass before this legislation is up and running and enacted.

As other Deputies have said, as a society we are all living longer, thankfully. That in itself creates challenges. Newspaper headlines tend to refer to the increased number of older people as a timebomb, but I suggest it should be seen as a positive achievement of our society. While it creates challenges for services and has health implications, it also has an impact on people's employment prospects. The huge changes that were made to pension schemes by the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government have unfortunately been really negative for many people, particularly women, and have led to significant difficulties. For example, changes were made to the way in which one's employment start date was established for the purposes of determining one's period of employment. Similarly, Deputy Brady referred to the difficulties caused by the change in the ceiling one has to reach with one's number of stamps.

The whole point of this Bill is to give people a choice. It is not about forcing people to work longer if they do not need to do so. I think most people work because they need to do so for financial reasons. However, some people work because they get satisfaction from their jobs. Deputies have spoken about people who have told them about the importance of their jobs for themselves and their self-esteem. As people get older, they read material that describes older people as "bed-blockers" and as negative rather than positive for society. In this part of the world, ageing is seen as something negative. In many cultures in other parts of the world, it is seen as hugely positive and important that people have experience and a history of involvement in issues.

This Bill gives workers a choice when it comes to their own retirements. It proposes that rather than requiring workers to retire without any choice at the age of 65 or 66, people of that age should be able to decide whether they want to retire immediately or to continue to work. What could be wrong with that? It is argued that this measure would hinder youth employment, but if one examines the research that has been done on the effects of similar legislation in other countries, one will see that this is not necessarily the case. I am reminded of the argument that was used years ago to require women to leave the Civil Service when they got married. They were deemed to be somehow preventing other people from getting jobs. In the event of redundancies, the attitude was that women rather than men should be let go. Society has moved on from those days. We would not dream of discriminating against people on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, gender, colour or creed, but we discriminate against people because of their age. When we pick up glossy magazines, the bodies and physical appearances of younger people are depicted as something we are supposed to work towards.

We need to be clear that getting rid of these mandatory retirement clauses is not about forcing people to work forever. People are concerned when they hear this case being made because they suspect it is a way of getting them to work for longer. It is not about that; it is about giving people choices. It is about older workers having the same job security as their younger counterparts. It is about allowing them to decide when they wish to stop working. It is about people being fit for work and being able for the work itself. Other Deputies have mentioned Age Action Ireland, which is one of the leading advocacy organisations for older people. It has referred to this set of retirement clauses as ageist.

It is also stated that it creates a second class set of employment rights for older people who suffer financially as a result. Their value and self-esteem is undermined by being told, in effect, they are too old to work. What is this about only changing that perception?

The Bill will address two major pension issues. It will allow women who have been discriminated against by pension changes to continue to work to get to 520 contributions and ensure they can get a full pension if they wish to do that. Again, I did not agree with those changes and I would like to think if we were ever in Government, we would reverse those measures brought about under the previous Government.

The Bill would also end the ridiculous issue of people aged 65 being forced on the dole. As public representatives we have all had such people coming to our constituency offices, saying they had never set foot inside a dole office but had been forced to sign on. They may have been put on some sort of scheme, and in some cases people may not have been fit for them. There were no medicals taken for some of the schemes I know of where senior citizens were being asked to attend. The cohort of those aged 65 on jobseeker's payments have been mentioned more than any other age category in the State. That must be examined.

I wish read into the record the voices of some older people, as this Bill is concerned with the frustration being felt by people. One woman spoke of how:

[T]he frustration of losing my job for no other reason than because I had turned 65 years of age was exacerbated by the financial hardship this policy of mandatory retirement inflicted on me. I was trying to pay a mortgage to the bank and a loan to the credit union at the same time and it was very difficult to keep going. I had to cut right back.

The person goes on to explain that she had to cut back on television and telephone services, as well as medication, all to pay for the mortgage and so on. We force people down this route. I know of many constituents in my area who took up the 50-50 scheme to buy their own homes. The difficulty was in trying to get a mortgage to cover that. We are limiting people's choices to buy their homes and there is discrimination against people when it comes to getting insurance at a certain age.

The current pension system is unfair and must change. Once more I commend my colleague on bringing forward the Bill. None of us would be satisfied after this debate if this went to a committee and was not to be seen thereafter. God knows where we will be in another three or four years. Some of us may be here and some of us may not. It will not be acceptable for us still to be discussing this in three or four years. We should have collective agreement, if we can, to bring this through. Some people at home may have gone through the different difficulties in the Bill, and I accept there are such difficulties, but many of us may switch off and the viewers at home may do the same. The area is complex, but collectively we can deliver on the Bill. There is goodwill across all parts of the House so we can and should do it. We owe the people of that age to give them a chance or a choice, if they want it, to continue in employment.

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