Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleagues for the few minutes available to me. This is a very serious issue. The 2012 Act that was changed has detrimentally affected people. Other parties spoke, criticising our party for putting down this motion. Many anomalies in this pension system go far back, such as the pro rata pension that was introduced because self-employment was included in 1988 and in 2010 when there was an attempt by the Department to take farmers' wives' pensions off them and the Attorney General had given advice that it should be removed. An amendment put down by former Deputies John Cregan and Noel Ahern and by myself resolved the issue, against the advice of the Attorney General, but we were proved right in the documentation we put before the House.

It was clearly known at the time how the attack in 2012 would affect people. It affects men as well as women, particularly men who worked in business. No PRSI was paid for self-employed people up to 1988. They would have had jobs off-site that they would have worked in their earlier years and then when it came to their contributions, there was a huge gap and they would be left without pensions. Men and women are affected by it, but predominantly women. We see now, as people come on board, that the Department has over the last weeks refused to send out PRSI records to people. They must now go online for those records. These are people heading into their mid-60s who may have no access to broadband or computers and they are told that they do not get a paper copy of their records. The simple issue here is how the 2012 Act was implemented by Deputy Joan Burton, with all the wailing that she went on with prior to 2011 when she was on the Labour benches, to give a fair assessment of her speeches, and again when she went to the other side. This is her legacy for the women of Ireland. It is a very dangerous legacy and we need to find a way to address it because men and particularly women are being extremely badly treated by this legislation.

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