Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

It is timely, after yesterday's budget, for me to renew my plea to the Leader on behalf of non-contributory old-age pensioners and those who will shortly apply for this pension. I propose that we remove the means test for this pension. The bulk of pensioners in this country are on a contributory pension, have a State pension or have private pension schemes. We are talking about approximately 40,000 people. Many people on non-contributory pensions are women who had to leave work owing to the marriage bar, small farmers at subsistence level——