Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will move amendment No. 14 when I get a chance. It calls for urgent action and a report on this incredible injustice that was done to a major cohort of our citizens in the 2012 budget when there was a change from four to six bands. This was based primarily on financial grounds, with the supporting documentation projecting so-called savings of approximately €45 million over a number of years. This followed the unfortunate cuts that were made by the Fianna Fáil Government from 2008, with changes made to the qualifying number of social insurance contributions. There was an effective doubling of these, from 250 to 520. This matter was part of that grotesque attack on some of our most vulnerable citizens.

I raised this with the former Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, in February this year, arguing that it penalised the women of his own generation of people born in the late 1940s up through the 1960s who had to take a period out of the workforce to rear their children when we had very little crèche infrastructure or support for working mothers. After 2012, they found themselves in this devastating position. Like the previous speaker, week in and week out I have spoken to women approaching 66 who have said they were astonished to find, having worked for a considerable portion of their life, that their pension was going to be so much lower than they had expected.

A very fine report was done on this by Age Action Ireland at the turn of the year. The researcher, Ms Maureen Bassett, set out very clearly the major impact that the cuts had on people and particularly those on the lower levels of contribution. She specifically outlined the effect on those with a rate of ten to 20 average contributions. Those with an average of 29 contributions ended up with just 85% of the maximum, and those with an average of 15 to 19 contributions ended up receiving a 10% lower sum than they had before 2012, down to 66% of the maximum. The bottom band with an average of ten to 15 contributions also received a 10% lower sum, leaving them with 40% of the maximum amount.

The clear injustice of this was best expressed in this House by Professor Alan Barrett of the Economic and Social Research Institute who said the Government changed the rules of the game in the middle of the game. There was a system where women thought they were working towards a particular pension, but arbitrarily in 2012 the Government did this. The public relations spin at the time was that there were no cuts in the social welfare rates. The reality was that the then Minister, Deputy Noonan, had a very savage impact on an entire generation of women workers in particular, as 66% of the affected workers are women. It is a cohort of 40,000 plus and it is growing, and they feel very angry. I heard many of these senior and retiring citizens saying this deserves a serious legal challenge based on the exact point made by Professor Barrett and it cannot be allowed to endure.

In debating the Social Welfare Bill and in putting questions to the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, and her predecessor, the current Taoiseach, I heard mention of working towards a position in 2021 and having some sort of restoration. From the figures supplied by the Minister, there does not seem to be any serious approach to doing that. We seem to be left with a position where, effectively, the suffering of these women workers, and some men, will go on as a gross injustice. The time has come for the Minister to come forward with a plan for restoration.

My simple approach would be for the status quo antefor these workers, along with restoration of losses. We heard a fairly positive report today from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, whose representatives appeared before the Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight. They outlined the budget surpluses we hope to have in the next few years, barring a Brexit disaster, and one of the uses of those surpluses should be to do justice to this cohort of women workers who have reared their families and worked so hard. We are all sympathetic in this regard but the Minister has the power to implement change. It was a reprehensible decision in 2012 and the Bassett report demonstrates quite clearly that people knew this would have a very disproportionate impact on women workers. Unfortunately, a woman Minister for Social Protection let that go through in budget 2012, inflicting that suffering on those women.

The Bassett report quotes the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which was adopted in 1979 by the United Nations. We ratified and signed it in 1995. We gave a commitment through the homemaker's scheme and the then regime for women's pensions that we would try to uphold that convention. I know the Bassett report also refers to the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 14 of which explicitly prohibits discrimination in how all the other convention rights should be enjoyed. This includes the equal enjoyment of all the rights of the European Convention on Human Rights. This includes pension rights for women workers. I urge the Minister to accept these amendments. I hope she will come forward and provide justice in this area.

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