Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I was not here for the event but I learned on the way over that at the start of his speech, Deputy Sherlock apologised for having supported the increase in the pension age. Someone told me he repeated the apology at the end of his speech. I do not know whether the Labour Party as a whole intends to follow the example of Deputy Sherlock on this issue and apologise to the people of this country in the next day or two. I do not expect any mass celebrations on the street. People will not be overjoyed that the Labour Party has changed its position. They will not rush out to thank its members for the change of mind. The people listening to this debate on the radio or watching it on television will be thinking about the fact that they will be forced to work until they are 67 or 68 years of age. The Labour Party had a major hand in that move back in 2014. The apology has been given but I do not think there will be much forgiveness, and that is completely understandable.

The Labour Party are not the only ones whose fingerprints are all over the plan to increase the pension age beyond 66 to 67 and 68. It was a Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government which signed up to it in the first place in 2010. This move was backed by Fine Gael and the Labour Party in 2014. Apologies from the Labour Party or any of those parties will not sort this issue out. We saw how it will be sorted out in the general election, when it bubbled up from below and people on the doorsteps angrily raised it with political canvassers. We have seen it in France and Belgium, where trade unionists have taken to the streets in their hundreds of thousands and millions against what is called pension reform but is really pension counter-reform. That shows how this will be sorted out in this country - through people power, not apologies from Deputy Sherlock, the Labour Party or any of those parties whose fingerprints are all over this disgraceful policy.

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