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

Again it seems we are producing reports, holding consultations and so on. In reality, as the Minister is aware, up to 40,000 of our senior constituents have lost out very badly in the 2012 changes. The Minister said it was part of the political and economic environment at the time. It was an environment with which I profoundly disagreed and I voted against it. The Minister also had the opportunity to vote against it, but she did not.

Over those years, those mostly senior women workers have lost a significant amount of money because of this. I note the first thing the Minister said about pensions is that they have to be affordable. The reality is that a grave injustice was done to that cohort of women workers. As I said to the then Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, almost a year ago, he let down his own generation and treated them badly. They lost a significant amount of pension to which they were entitled. As Professor Alan Barrett of the ESRI said, the Government changed the rules of the game in the middle of the game for that cohort of mostly senior women workers. A grave injustice has been done. We know the reality and the facts. It is more than a year since Maureen Bassett produced her great report on this injustice for Age Action. We have been talking about it for a year. What does the Minister propose to do?

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