David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have not even spoken. This goes to the heart of the issue of forcing legislation through without proper scrutiny. We raised issues on the subject matter of section 4 last year. Section 4 deals with pension contributions. The issues I wish to discuss arise from legislation passed in 1997 which provided that the number of contributions required was to be doubled from 260 to 520. Last year's budget gave effect to that provision and the legislation passed in its wake sought to apply the measure to everyone from April 2012. We objected to that at the time and were lobbied by a number of individuals who were fast approaching retirement only to discover their pension entitlement would be a fraction of what they had expected. It affected the women particularly.

The legislation overlooked certain categories of people. Our figures show that 540 people managed to qualify for a pension with only 260 contributions. Changes are now being made to correct that, the reason being that we rushed through the legislation last year as we are again this year. This is important because it reinforces the argument we would all make that we need proper scrutiny of legislation passing through the House. We should not force the Social Welfare Bill through simply to get it done before the end of the year. We must allow sufficient time for both the Upper and Lower Houses to scrutinise the legislation properly.

It appears that we missed a category of people last year.