Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Sinn Féin motion before us tonight and the fact that we are debating this issue. It is probably the first time we have been able to hear from the Minister formally on the establishment of the pensions commission, outside of the normal parliamentary questions process. I welcome her clarification on the income supports for people retiring at age 65 and I welcome her statement that she will be introducing regulations to formally remove the current requirements for people aged 65 and over to sign on.

Everybody involved in the Stop67 campaign made a strong impression on all of us during the election campaign through their own stories. I would go so far as to say that that campaign has been quite influential in bringing about an outcome that ensures people do not have to face the ignominy of appearing before a social protection office when they have 35, 40, or 50 years of labour under their belts. That will be finally and formally be done away with now. I put great store in the fact that the Stop67 campaign had a big influence or impact on that decision.

I stand before the House as someone who was a member of the Government when the decision was made on the State pension transition payment. I am deeply regretful about that decision. I heard from people after that, the very people about whom we are talking tonight, who had put such time and effort into their life's labour and had to suffer indignity at the end of their working lives. That is something I will always regret. The decision was made at a time when there was economic retrenchment but it now has to be reversed. As Deputies, we deal with social protection issues every day of the week and have an intimate knowledge of the workings of the social protection architecture. We must ensure that the State pension transition is restored because the certainty it gives would mean much to people at the end of their working lives. I do not say that seeking to score political points. I say it because we hear from people about this, day in, day out, and we all bought into the Stop67 campaign and heard what those people had to say. The system worked very well for people, by and large. I do not see why it could not be restored or at least looked at.

I welcome the establishment of the pensions commission. I do not necessarily see it as kicking the can down the line. I welcome it primarily because of how it is constituted. There are members on that committee from the trade union movement, as well as former civil servants and so on, who are robust people. I do not want to speak to gender per se, but they are all decent people, men and women. I have no doubt that they will be cognisant of the issue of gender as it relates to low-paid working women in this country, about whom we all know. I could give chapter and verse of examples of low-paid workers but I am not going to do that tonight. We all deal with this issue. Sometimes people come into this House and articulate examples but we all deal with this across the House, no matter who we are. We must be conscious, through the pensions commission, of the issue of gender and set up a system whereby women, particularly those in labour-intensive jobs or precarious employment, who come to the end of their working lives do not have to go through another firewall or have to knock down another door to get to that restful period, to which everybody expects to get when they retire from their years or decades of labour.

The pensions commission will hopefully come up with a set of recommendations that speak to flexibility and the issue of people who work in labour-intensive or extremely stressful jobs. I think of front-line workers, nurses and doctors in the current climate. If these people have done so many years' work and are retiring well in advance of 65, a framework should be set up to protect them in order that they do not lose their entitlements. We need a system that reflects the new paradigm in Irish society. There is a pensions time bomb but we also need to allow for flexibility, in order to reflect the new realities of people's working lives. If the pensions commission deals with that it will have done a good day's work, but only if the Minister of the day does not put its recommendations up on a shelf to gather dust. Nobody wants that and that is not what anybody is suggesting. The composition of the commission itself is of robust, august people who will not be found wanting when it comes to exploring all of these issues.

I note that the terms of reference make specific mention of gender and to demographics.

I support the motion. It is important that we discuss this issue because of the differential that exists between jobseeker's allowance or benefit and the pension. As a society, we want to ensure that the very people who contacted Deputies through the Stop67 campaign and outside of that campaign, such as the citizens who come through our constituency office doors with their own testimony on this issue, as well as the people one meets on the street, men and women, have available to them a mechanism that allows that transition to take place as seamlessly as possible, that recognises the dignity of their labour and toil and sets up a pensions architecture that is realistic, that speaks to the cost and the demographic fact that Irish people are getting older but also to the need to ensure we look after these people when they come to the end of their working lives. While I say "these people"; ultimately, we are all these people across professions.

I will say one thing on the composition of the pensions commission. I do not want to strike a discordant note about it. We are all very mindful of the Stop67 campaign and its constituent parts, as well as the role of the National Women's Council of Ireland in advocating for women and I was hopeful that they would be part of this because of their advocacy. We must recognise their role, as well as that of organisations like Age Action, Active Retirement Ireland and SIPTU, that were all under the umbrella of Stop67. The decision is made and I accept it but its mandate under that umbrella should be recognised through the work of the commission. I think it will be but we should not lose sight of that campaign's work because it was vital.

I stand before the House and acknowledge the decisions that were made in the past that led to the scenarios that left people with a loss of dignity after their years of labour. I was part of that Government and speaking personally, I am deeply regretful. Perhaps we should have revised that. The beauty of politics and policy is that policy can be reversed to reflect new realities. If one devises a policy one should not sit on it until kingdom come. If it needs to be changed and circumstances dictate, then one can always change that policy.

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