Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I remember in the run-up to the election last year queueing at a funeral in Abbeydorney and seeing an election poster on the street. One person in front of me turned to the other and said, "Who thought that our pensions were going to be one of the biggest issues in this election?". Since then, the issue of workers' rights has never been far away. Whether it is redundancies, overtime, the lack of double time, the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, or the Debenhams workers, we have seen how employers seem to hold all the cards.

This Bill is a welcome counterweight to the increasingly lopsided balance against workers' rights. I always think of the ordinary print workers in The Kerryman whose pensions were decimated in the lottery of the stock market. Allowing workers enhanced representation when changes are being made to their pensions who, having worked all their lives, are entering retirement without property, shares or other assets, is the least they deserve.

During and since the years of austerity the drive to shrink the State and to outsource has decimated good employment, especially in towns that were heavily reliant on the public sector, manufacturing and ESB workers etc. The contribution of these workers cannot be taken for granted. Their current working lot is bad enough without being denied their entitlements. As was pointed out by colleagues today and last week, it is simply unfair that workers are obliged to retire at 65 years of age on a jobseeker's rate of €203. This is below the poverty line in a State with the second highest cost of living in Europe, where food and utility bills are high and where in rural areas, the cost of maintaining, keeping and paying for a car is driving people further into poverty.

Contrast that with the pensions of some recently retired Fine Gael members who left this House before the age of 50. Did the parties that formed the Government not hear the voices of the electorate or the people standing in line at the funeral in Abbeydorney who said loud and clear that this is not acceptable? Retirement should be a time to relax with grandchildren in economic comfort as a reward for working for many years, which allows you to contribute in other ways to the economic and social life of our towns and villages. This Bill goes some way to restoring that ideal and this motion should pass today. There should be no delay and we should move to Committee Stage as soon as possible.

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