Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

People who are being discriminated against under the current State pension provisions will protest outside Leinster House again this afternoon. The Minister is probably aware that this issue affects approximately 40,000 citizens who are campaigning for the full restoration of their pension entitlements. They want a full rather than a partial solution. Some of them are out of pocket to the tune of €30 a week as a result of the changes introduced in 2012. As the Minister knows, this discrimination disproportionately affects women and is a direct result of measures introduced by Fine Gael and its Labour Party partners when they were in government in 2012. Deputy Joan Burton's changes have made it extremely difficult for women who exited the workforce, perhaps to raise children or attend to other caring duties, before returning to employment later in life to qualify for the maximum payment. I cite women as an example because they are affected disproportionately, but I am conscious that the changes also hurt some men. This discrimination did not happen by accident. It was not an oversight or a mistake. The Government of the day made the changes in the full knowledge of the impact they would have on these citizens and the disproportionate effect it would have on women.

Sinn Féin has been calling on the Government for some time to sort out this matter. A motion we proposed in the Dáil in December 2016 to address this injustice was rejected by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. The alternative budget we published in October 2017 showed the Government how funding could be provided to rectify and correct this discrimination, but, again, it was rejected by the Government. We raised this matter during Leaders' Questions on a number of occasions before Christmas. Every time we have proposed solutions to this problem we have received evasive and non-committal responses from the Government. Time and again, it has chosen not to do right by the people affected.

It has emerged that the Government is now considering partial restoration. I understand the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, has acknowledged that the citizens mentioned have been wronged and vowed to fix this anomaly. However, she has expressed the view that something magical will have to happen if the money is to be found. I remind the House that the Government infamously conjured up €5 million to fund a strategic communications unit as the Taoiseach's vanity project. It was able to find enough financial space to introduce tax cuts which disproportionately benefited the well off. Now it is telling us that financial wizardry would be required to find €70 million to correct an injustice perpetrated against 40,000 people. The people who will protest at the gates of Leinster House today are telling us loudly and clearly that they will not accept being treated as second-class citizens any longer. The Government's job is to find a solution for them. Comforting words and expressions of sympathy are not enough because a solution is needed. Will the Minister tell the people standing at the gates of Leinster House that the Government will provide the €70 million in funding needed to enable them finally to receive their full entitlements?

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