Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy McNamara. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute briefly to the debate on this motion, which I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward. It was 1 December 2020 when we last debated a Sinn Féin motion on pension age, in support of the STOP67 campaign. Fortunately, there was enough public pressure on the Government at that time, and in the lead-up to the general election in February 2020, to pause the planned increase in retirement age to 67 years from 2021, even though that provision had been enacted in the Social Welfare Bill.

I listened with interest to the contributions of Labour Party Members in support of this motion. The electorate has not forgotten that it was the Labour Party, in coalition with Fine Gael, that first legislated for the phased increase in pension ages. In 2014, the age was increased to 66 years and it was supposed to increase to 67 years from 1 January this year and to 68 years from 1 January 2028. A State pension transition payment was introduced and then abolished, and 65-year-olds then had to sign on for jobseeker's payment. That payment is €45.30 less per week than the State pension rate. Why must the public always be expected to pay for the Government's ineptitude?

The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, gave us some insight when she said during the debate in December 2020: "We want to maintain a fair balance between those who are contributing to the system and those who are drawing from it." This reflects the particular quality of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that likes to pit cohorts of people against each other in their deservingness of, or access to, scarce resources. The programme for Government sets out a number of commitments regarding pension provision, specifying that it would be "[u]nderpinned by the principles of sustainability, adequacy, and fairness" and would involve "affordable changes". That is laughable. Changes cannot be called affordable if they do not include addressing the extortionate expenditure on tax relief for people with private pensions, which has cost the Exchequer billions over the years.

In discussing pensions, I always look to Social Justice Ireland for guidance, as it has consistently produced excellent analysis, proposals and fully costed measures to inform Government decisions. I suppose the clue is in the name, however. Why would Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party take advice from any group seeking, God forbid, social justice? The organisation has done a significant amount of work on the cost of providing tax relief on private pensions. In its 2018 paper, A Universal State Social Welfare Pension: Recognising the Contribution of all our Senior Citizens, it states:

. The Green Paper on Pensionsestimated a gross cost of €3,220m for 2006 while the Department of Finance's Tax Strategy Group estimated a gross cost of €3,035m for 2007...

The National Recovery Plan 2010gave the total gross cost of pension tax expenditures as €2,500m for 2010, comprising: the costs of tax relief on employee/employer/individual contributions to pension savings at €1,000m; the cost of the tax exemption for employer contributions as Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) in the hands of employees at €500m; and the cost of exempting from tax the accrued income and gains growth of pensions funds at €1,000m...

Collins and Walsh (2010: 24-25) estimated the total cost of tax expenditures allocated to private pensions in 2007 was €3,100m. In 2010, the Revenue Commissioners estimated a gross cost of €2,929m for pension tax expenditures (Revenue Commissioners, 2011).

There is a significant variation in the figures but all the numbers are huge and they show that the Government is governing for the few, not the many.

According to the same Social Justice Ireland report, giving tax relief on private pension contributions at 40% instead of 20% means that "[o]ver 70 per cent of the tax relief for private pensions accrues to the top 20 per cent of earners, with more than 50 per cent accruing to the top 10 per cent of earners." A change in this regard would, the report noted, be a . At the end of April 2021, in response to the public consultation by the Pensions Commission, Social Justice Ireland released a statement entitled "Disjointed Pensions Policy will fail Older People", in which it advocated for the following changes:

of tax relief on private pensions from 40 per cent to 20 per cent and second increasing employers PRSI by 0.5 per cent. These, along with some other smaller measures, would raise in the region of €949m, which is €200m+ more than the additional cost of the Universal Pension in 2019.

Social Justice Ireland has long advocated and put forward costed proposals for a universal pension scheme. However, as I said, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, two interchangeable parties, are about governing for the few, not the many. The Government committed to establishing the aforementioned Pensions Commission, the purpose of which was to "outline options... to address issues including qualifying age, contribution rates, total contributions and eligibility requirements".

The Pensions Commission was due to finish its work in June 2021. When will the report of the commission be available? The programme for Government states: "The Commission will report by June 2021", but the Commission's website states that it would meet fortnightly until June 2021.

I am out of time, but I wish to mention a few issues, including pension solutions for carers, the majority of whom are women; and the impact of the housing crisis on pensioners, as we have upcoming generations who do not own their own homes and therefore will not be living mortgage-free or rent-free into their pension years. These issues also need to be addressed.

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