Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

All the Deputy is offering is hollow rhetoric. He stands up on issue after issue, and in respect of groups that have been affected by the decisions that were made and the calamity of the crisis the country went through he brings them all in and promises them Sinn Féin will give them everything they want. It is hollow rhetoric at best.

Deputies stand in the House and say they want issues like pay restoration dealt with and that we should invest more in the here and now in our schools and hospitals. I agree there is a need to do that. They also stand up and say that pensioners need more and they need it now, and that Sinn Féin will give it to them. Sinn Féin promises anyone who comes into its representatives all they want.

That may work on the Opposition benches, but is the route to going back to the kind of crisis our country is trying to put behind us. Why do Opposition Deputies not recognise that by 1 January 2018 anybody who is receiving a pension of €34,000 will see the PSPR eliminated? The kind of changes that the Government felt needed to be brought in to help our country get out of the crisis will be eliminated by that point.

As the Deputy knows, we need to bear in mind that the average level of pension payment for somebody in receipt of a pension is €23,000 for a former public service worker. The measures that we have in place up to next year look to deal, in so far as we can, with the kind of agenda and anxiety to which the Deputy referred.

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