Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Barrett for giving me some of his time. Like Senator O'Brien, I was horrified when I got an e-mail late last night from one of the pension groups concerned saying that the Minister had signed the commencement order. We had heard last week that this issue was being examined again, that the deferred pensioners had met with the Tánaiste and positive noises had been made and that they had been told the Government was finally listening to their case and accepted the fact that to cut anyone's pension entitlement by 60% just as they are about to retire is an outrage. We had flagged that Senator O'Brien, myself and our Dáil colleagues would be tabling an amendment to the Social Welfare bill. We had hoped that the Government would finally listen and realise how unfair this is and change course on it.

I was so angry when I got that e-mail last night. These people had been e-mailing members of this House and the other House for weeks. They had been getting the same bland information that I and my colleagues in the House have been getting for months about the general situation in the pension fund. No one came back to people and explained why it is right to cut the pensions of retired members by an unfair amount or how it could possibly be right to cut the pensions of people who had 34, 35, or 38 years service by 60%. I still have not seen a reply from the Minister's office or from anyone else that answers that question directly. People deserve that minimum amount of respect. They do not deserve to be getting general replies about the problem with the fund.

All of us accept that there are problems with the fund and there needs to be a fair and sensible solution to that. However, what is being proposed is incredibly unfair. There is no justification for it. As stated earlier, first, it is unprecedented for the Government to rush through legislation to interfere in a private pension fund to this extent and, second, to cut payments and private pension entitlements by such a severe extent. I am disappointed it has got to this and that the Minister signed the commencement order to give the trustees those powers. We will keep pushing this issue prior to the passing of the Social Welfare Bill and hoping that people see sense. Whatever about the Minister's party, I particularly do not understand how Labour Party members could possibly stand over cutting the pensions of workers who worked all their lives in tough jobs. These are people who were bought out of the scheme, as previously stated, on early retirement. How anybody in a party that calls itself the Labour Party could stand over doing that to people is beyond me and I hope they see sense before it is too late.