Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As the Taoiseach will recall, a rise in the pension age was a major issue in the last general election. Immediately after the election the Government set up a Commission on Pensions which published its report last October. The trade union-led campaign, Stop 67, was successful in the interim and the proposed increase was stopped. The commission report proposed to freeze the pension age until 2028 and then to begin phased increases by increments of three months to reach 67 by 2031 and then to rise by three months every two years to hit 68 by 2039. As part of the next steps, the Government also sought the views of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection. The commission's report was referred to the Cabinet committee on economic recovery and investment which is to bring recommendations for implementation by the end of March.

Today the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection, in its response to the report of the Commission on Pensions, made a series of landmark recommendations which are clearly at odds with the recommendations of the Commission on Pensions last October. Today's report proposes that the State pension age should not rise beyond the age of 66. It makes the very important point that this cross-party committee of the House which looked at the facts is unconvinced that the gradual increase in the pension age would have any meaningful impact on the fiscal position of the Social Insurance Fund. It proposes to boost funding for the Social Insurance Fund with a series of PRSI increases. It also calls for a ban on the use of mandatory retirement ages. One of the most important recommendations is that we should now build flexibility into our pension system to allow those with 40 years of contributions to access a State pension at the age of 65. Many people now approaching retirement age started working in their teens and in some cases, have worked for 40 or 50 years since then, paying their taxes and social contributions.

Will the Government accept the recommendation of the cross-party committee that the pension age should stay at its current age of 66? Will the Taoiseach confirm that legislation will be brought forward to ban the use of mandatory retirement clauses? Will the Government act to allow those with 40 years of contributions to access their pension at 65, as recommended by the all-party committee?

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