Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is fair enough. I will make a few general observations and leave it to my colleagues to ask the questions. We will give the Minister a break from questions. I join with her and other speakers in congratulating the staff of the Department of Social Protection on the wonderful work they have been doing during the pandemic. I say a special word of thanks and congratulations to local staff in Limerick who have performed with unfailing courtesy and provided help above and beyond the call of duty. I thank them for the great patience and forbearance they have displayed in spite of all the annoyance we have inflicted on them in recent months.

I was a little disturbed by the Minister's response to the question about the continuation of the PUP from the end of March.

Everybody knows that the lockdown in some shape or form, possibly its present form, is going to continue beyond the end of March and naturally the PUP should be extended to account for that. People are exhausted and under enormous pressure. There is a lot of evidence that people's mental health has been affected by these continuous lockdowns. What people are looking for from me, and indeed from colleagues on all sides of the House, is a bit of certainty. If the country is still locked down and people still cannot go to work after 31 March, will the PUP remain in place or will people have to fall back on the basic rate of social welfare? If the PUP does stay in place, what rates will apply? I took careful note of what the Minister said in this regard. She said that the Government will not be found wanting and I shall communicate that to all of the people who get in touch with my office but those people would prefer a little more certainty. While I acknowledge that the Minister must consult her Cabinet colleagues, I urge her to come to a decision on this soon because it will give those people who are under a lot of pressure one less thing to worry about.

I listened carefully to the questions and answers earlier but I did not hear anyone mentioning the vexed question of the over-66s. When the PUP was introduced, people over the age of 66 were specifically and definitively excluded. We all know people over the age of 66 who were self-employed - wet publicans spring to mind immediately - or employed and who continued to work. It is a growing phenomenon in society. As people live longer, more and more of them are working beyond the age of 66. Some people in that category qualify for the old age pension because they have paid their contributions over the years but others do not. Whether they are getting the pension or not, the reality is that as a result of the Government's necessary action to close down the economy to protect public health, they have been deprived of income they previously enjoyed. If they happened to be a day under the age of 66 when this kicked in, they were fine but if they were a day over the age of 66, they were automatically disqualified. The Minister said she was doing her very best to ensure that everything was being done fairly and equitably in all sectors but there is blatant discrimination against people over the age of 66. I want more people over the age of 66, if they are mentally and physically fit, continuing to work because that will take a lot of pressure off the pension system. In some occupations people can work beyond the age of 66 but in others, they cannot. Building labourers, for example, are literally worn out at 55 or 60 and it would be cruel to expect them to work up to the age of 68, 69 or 70. People aged 66 should be entitled to retire with a full pension if they wish but we want to encourage more of them to stay in work. We also want to remove or outlaw those ridiculous contracts that compel people to retire at 65. If that step was taken, together with progressing the pensions auto-enrolment system, which seems to have fallen into some sort of Bermuda triangle, it would relieve a lot of the financial pressure that keeping the pension age at 66 would impose.

I am sorry to have to disagree with my colleague, Deputy McAuliffe, with regard to the question of taxing the PUP. When the PUP was introduced and was in operation for several months, there was no question whatsoever of it being taxed. Then the Government decided to tax it, presumably on the basis that other social welfare payments are taxable in the sense that one's tax credits are reduced by the amount of the social welfare payment. However, the PUP falls into a completely different category. It is completely different from other social welfare payments in many ways. The Government introduced it initially on the basis that it would be at the same rate as basic social welfare payments but soon realised that some of the people who were losing their jobs were earning, in net terms, two, three or four times what they would have received on social welfare. It, therefore, raised the rate to €350 per week so that the fall in income would not be too steep. The rate is different as are the conditions to qualify for the PUP. Social welfare is something that can continue indefinitely but the PUP is temporary. It is a temporary emergency payment and the idea that the Government would come back, months after it has been introduced, and decide unilaterally to tax it retrospectively makes absolutely no sense.

I just wanted to make those few points and am happy to defer to my colleague, Deputy Flaherty.

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