Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I, of course, support Sinn Féin's very genuine and heartfelt motion. My late mother always said one could judge any government or society on how it treats people who are getting to an older age and how those people are respected. Past governments certainly did not shroud themselves in glory in the way they treated our older people. When it comes to pensions, it should be about choice. If a person is in the good form and health that means they want to keep working, he or she should be allowed to do so. If a person is getting tired and wants to get out of the workforce, having worked hard, contributed, paid a great deal in tax and raised their families, to have more time to take a bit of ease for themselves, then, my good God, they are more than entitled to it.

I want to highlight some of the things that have gone on here this evening. When I see Labour Party Deputies saying they are going to support Sinn Féin's motion, by God I must say they are a hypocritical shower, of what I will not say. They had a special Minister in a previous Government who had the responsibility for being particularly horrible. I would call her the Minister for horribleness. I recall what she, in particular, did to older people, pensioners and women, and how women's rights were so desperately and detrimentally affected when it came to pensions. When I see Labour Party Deputies saying tonight they will support this motion, I can only say they are a hypocritical shower. That is exactly what they are to be doing that here tonight. Why will they not be true to their form and say what they said before, in 2011 and 2012? Will they not say here tonight what they said then about pensioners? Perhaps other people will forget what they did but I will not forget it and nor will I let anyone else forget it either.

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