John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are now more than 4,000 people aged 65 in receipt of a jobseeker's payment. Many of those people were obliged by contract to retire at the age of 65. They are forced onto a jobseeker's payment for one year before their State pension is assessed at the age of 66. If the Minister's planned hike proceeds in January, retirees will be forced onto a jobseeker's payment for two years. This is a ridiculous and totally unacceptable situation for people who have worked hard and paid taxes for their entire lives. Retirement should be about choices. People should be entitled to the full State pension at the age of 65. People should also have the choice to continue to work if they wish to do so.

In 2016 I brought forward legislation to abolish the mandatory retirement age but the Minister's Government blocked that legislation. The pension age was one of the biggest issues in the election in February. Voters expressed their opposition to the pension age increase through their support for Sinn Féin and other parties who had opposed these increases in the previous years. We did not politicise the issue of pensions. That issue has long been politicised.

The facts are that the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government of 2007 and the Government in 2011 made a decision with their friends in the troika to increase the pension age to 67 in 2021 and to 68 in 2028. The subsequent Fine Gael and Labour Party coalition put this into law in 2011. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael supported the increase in the State pension age and the parties were left scrambling on the issue during the election. As a result of how big an issue it has become, they have tried to kick it down the road with the establishment of the Commission on Pensions. For its part, the commission omits including any representative from civil society, thereby excluding the very people who will be most impacted by any decision made by the commission.

Ireland's current pension age of 66 years is above the EU average of 64. We have 30% fewer older people in Ireland than in other EU countries. In 50 years' time, Ireland will still have the lowest number of older people at nearly 20% fewer than in other EU countries.

I agree with the Minister on one point, that actions speak louder than words. It is time to take action, to stop forcing people to work for longer and to give them the right to retire at the age of 65.

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