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

There is a ritualistic element to the debate.

I have seen many of these debates over the years and you have to be for or against. Those who are for or against make speeches against one another and in many cases read speeches against one another. However, the difference is that in the old days, we got a much longer opportunity to speak. I regret the change and now we all seem to be confined to four, five or six minutes. With the few minutes available to me I do not have the opportunity to go into all the different aspects of the budget. It was a huge budget with €11 billion in expenditure. There are one or two things I would like the Minister of State to address when he is replying to the debate.

The first is that this year, the Government will spend an enormous amount of taxpayers' money, and rightly so, on providing State contributory old age pensions. That sum will be considerably added to as a result of last Tuesday's announcement. As the years go on, the burden will become even greater but we must ensure our elderly population have peace of mind and a sense of security in their twilight years. There is, therefore, an onus on the Government to make this whole system sustainable but what I fail to understand is how the recent announcement of changes in the administration of the pension system is going to make the system more sustainable.

It is my understanding the cornerstone of the proposal was that at the moment, a person who reaches the age of 66 years and has his or her full contributions paid is entitled to a full old-age pension. If there are no contractual difficulties etc., a person can continue to work and receive his or her pension. My understanding of the proposal is if a person forgoes his or her pension until he or she is 70 years of age then he or she will get €70 more per week and there are graduated figures in between. Let us leave out potential or projected inflation as we do not know what they are going to be anyway. Take somebody who is presented with a choice at the moment. The person intends to continue working on at the age of 66 years and is entitled to the old age pension. If the person forgoes the pension for the next four years then according to my arithmetic it will cost him or her €55,000 in today's money. A figure of €70 per week in four years' time to compensate you for the loss of €55,000 between now and the age of 70 years will mean that before you start benefiting in net terms from that change, you will be 83 years of age. What person would, in their sane financial senses, opt for such a system? In my view there will be very few. We are presented with this as a cornerstone of making the whole system more sustainable but so few people will be taking it up, if any, that I cannot understand, quite frankly, how it is going to make it more sustainable.

The other thing that was missing in the recent Government proposal was how we are going to get over this contractual requirement to retire at the age of 65 years. It can be done immediately by legislation and does not require a constitutional referendum but if it does, let us have one. We have arguably had such referendums for much less important matters than giving people security and peace of mind in their twilight years.

Before I conclude, I make brief reference to the proposed levy on concrete products, including concrete blocks, pouring concrete and other such products. I accept the taxpayer is not at fault here; he or she is not responsible for this debacle. I accept the people who are responsible for it should be made pay if that is possible. I also accept that when there is wrongdoing, and clearly there was here, there should be consequences. However, the question is, consequences for whom. The taxpayers are going to have to fork out this €5 billion one way or another and we have a levy that will have to be applied for 50 years before the sum is made up, according to the figures. Would it not be ironic if a subset of taxpayers, namely, people who are going to be hard-pressed because they want to build or purchase houses - and they are hard-pressed indeed - was to be made pay twice over by contributing to the €80 million per year levy? This is going to happen if that levy is passed on, which it inevitably will be. This is due to be discussed on Committee Stage of the Finance Bill and the measure is not due to kick in until 3 April, as I understand it. The Government will have to reflect very carefully indeed between now and the Finance Bill. This should be discussed fully within the Government parties. It will be discussed in committee when that particular section of the Finance Bill is dealt with but I urge the Government to think very carefully about the consequences. It is not that I do not want wrongdoers to suffer, because I do, but I do not want the victims to suffer in an attempt to get at the wrongdoers.

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