Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It has been put by many colleagues in the House, particularly Deputy Ó Laoghaire, that a considerable number of us in Sinn Féin would have supported that overall idea of auto-enrolment. It is something for which we would have pushed for a considerable amount of time. An argument can even be made that we are late to the game in that regard. Like an awful lot of other schemes, however, the whole idea is that we get it right.

I am going to reiterate what has already been said because it is absolutely vital in this particular case. We obviously cannot support this and the first and foremost reason is that low-paid workers will not be allowed to opt out and claim back their money for a whole six months. A worker who is earning €20,000 per year would be down roughly €5.76 per week. That is on average basically €25 per month. We all know this. Anyone who is knocking on doors at the minute who did not know beforehand now realises the issue that is out there with the cost-of-living crisis. That relates to housing in all its senses, childcare, transport and the cost of fuel, heating and shopping. In some cases, people even say it is the cost of absolutely everything. The fact is that there is no flexibility and there is a particular issue around the six months. This is something that has to be looked at. We are all into the idea that this is to protect workers. This is about ensuring protection.

Obviously, I will add my voice that I would hate to think that anyone would consider dropping the old-age pension into the future on the basis of what we are doing here. However, rather than private funds that are seeking to make money for themselves, we actually need to look at the likes of the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, to manage these funds from a point of view of looking after the people out there because if that is what we are attempting to do, that is what we require absolutely.

While I have the Minister in the Chamber, I have to raise an issue that was brought to me by Anne and Kathleen, who do great work in my office, but beyond that also by a lady who rang me. It is the idea of the new hubs. We are talking about jobseeker's allowance, community welfare payments and even the new housing payments and all the rest of it. The issue with regard to the hubs at the minute is that there seems to be a particular-----

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