Terry Brennan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Word has come down to me that I may be the most appropriate person in the House to talk about pensions. I was born in the early 1950s and married in the early 1970s. The Minister may do the calculations in this regard. When I was married, women gave up work to look after the house. We had three children, one after another, and my wife ceased to work. As far as I am concerned, nobody works harder than the housewife in any house. Many retire from work to rear their families and many return to work in later years when their children have grown up. Some never return to work, not even on a part-time basis.

The Minister mentioned mandatory pension contributions in her speech. I had to pay them, at a rate of 7% of my salary, when employed by a semi-State organisation. Over the years, having had two or three children in university at the same time, I would have felt well off if I had the 7% I was paying mandatorily towards my pension. It was a major struggle but we got through it. Colleagues of mine were in the same position. Mandatory contributions will be difficult.

My father died when he was 92 and started work at the age of 14. He was paying a small amount of tax on his pension at 92, as was his father before him. The Minister may not agree with my belief that a man or woman who works continuously for 50 years, from the age of 18 or perhaps 23 or 24 if educated, pays a significant amount of tax to the benefit of the economy and merits his or her entitlements. When I think of the abuse of the social welfare system and the difficulty people encounter in trying to obtain entitlements after 50 years, I realise people are entitled to what they deserve at that stage.