Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. Again, I agree there is an inadequacy to it. I also will need to take back the information, which is new to me, about how An Post wrote to the Department for the superannuation scheme to be aligned with the PO grade in the Civil Service. I just want to go back and have a look at that. While New Era and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications etc. may be reviewing these requests, they have ultimately to be bound by section 46 of the Act. This discretion has been applied by the Minister to pension increases when they should always be pegged against section 46 and on terms that are not less favourable than Civil Service terms. That has not been done. That is a structural problem that underpins the problem we are raising here.

We have a pension problem in this country. It is not a time bomb coming down the road; it is here right now. There are pensioners who are on low fixed incomes now who cannot afford to get by. Age Action, the National Women's Council, Active Retirement and SIPTU yesterday launched the Pension Promise campaign. It is right throughout society. The An Post workers are another aspect of that. I ask the Minister to come back with a real resolution to this.

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