Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment tabled by my colleague, Deputy O'Dea. Some of us have been raising this anomaly since 2012. It is not this year alone that we have raised it or the difficulties that have been caused, in particular to women who left insurable employment to take up full-time work at home caring for children, elderly parents or siblings. We all know of many individuals and families who have been caused hardship by the method of calculating pension entitlements. Many of us know of people who worked alongside a colleague who, despite having made ten full years of 52 contributions per year prior to reaching pension age or a yearly average of more than 48, is now on a reduced pension.

I recently encountered a case. Back when a person was young and about to emigrate to England to take up a particular trade, his family got him two weeks work in a similar business in Dublin through a contact. It was done to give him some experience before emigrating to London to start an apprenticeship. When he retired, he returned to Ireland some years subsequently, having paid his insurance contributions over many years. However, his entitlement is now calculated starting from the two insurance contributions that were credited to him when he was young. He did not even know that his employer, who did everything above board, had paid those contributions. Following the Department assessing his entitlement, he has a much reduced pension because the employer paid two stamps for him, followed by a long time lag before he returned to Ireland.

My colleagues, Deputies O'Dea and Curran, have made strong cases on Second Stage and Committee Stage. I strongly support Deputy O'Dea's recommendation and ask the Minister to revert quickly with a report with a view towards enacting measures to eliminate anomalies and ensure that people are not denied their entitlements.

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