Seanad debates

Friday, 27 April 2012

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2012: Second Stage

 

12:00 pm

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

The Labour Party opposed that at the time but now it is to reduce the age limit to seven years. It is wrong.

I refer the House to a number of submissions made by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed. It is particularly concerned about a proposed new section of the Bill, section 8(12), which deals with mortgage interest supplement, and is seeking for this amendment to be removed. It is also concerned about the section that deals with entitlements for social welfare recipients with regard to jobseeker's benefit. It has a concern about the effect of cuts in entitlements on people's ability to return to work.

There is some mention of pensions in the Bill. One of the things the Government should consider is what happened at Waterford Crystal, where hundreds of workers were left without any pension entitlements whatsoever because this and previous Governments failed to implement an EU directive that forces pension companies to take out a bond to protect workers so that if their pension schemes go belly-up, which many have done, or if a company closes and therefore does not have new workers paying into the scheme, workers are not left high and dry without any pension. The aim of the directive was to ensure pension companies would take out insurance so that workers were guaranteed at least 60% of their pensions. Why is the Government not implementing that directive? Why do the former workers of Waterford Crystal need to take the Government to the Commercial Court to force it to do the right thing? Something like this may happen again. When it happened in Waterford Crystal, many workers were left high and dry. It is high time the Government implemented the directive to safeguard the pension entitlements of working people so that what happened to the Waterford Crystal workers, which was disgraceful, does not happen to others. The implementation of the directive is in the Government's hands.

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