Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry that amendment No. 1 has been ruled out of order. It sought to exempt people who reach the age of 65 after next January and who qualify for jobseeker's allowance or benefit from the requirement to be available for and genuinely to seek full-time employment. The existence of the State pension is historical. Until the early 1970s, the qualifying age for the contributory State pension was 70 years of age. State pension transition, known then as the retirement pension, was introduced at that time to bridge the gap for employees who had to retire at 65 years of age. The qualifying age for the contributory State pension was subsequently increased over time to 66 years which left State pensions effective for just one year. The Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2011 provided that the State pension age would increase gradually to 68 years. This began in January 2015 with the abolition of the availability of the State pension at 65 thereby standardising State pension age for all at 66 years. The State pension age will increase further to 67 in 2021 and to 68 in 2028.

Mandatory retirement clauses which force people to retire at 65 coupled with the abolition of the State pension transition mean that people in this position do not qualify for a pension until 66 and therefore must sign on for a jobseeker's payment. We suggest that this is a ridiculous situation. After years of employment, people will be forced to endure a gap year before the State steps in with a pension entitlement. They will be considered too old to work by their previous employers but too young to claim a pension from the State. The failure to address this issue is just another example of how poorly the Government treats older people. There is no justification for it whatsoever. Despite claims to the contrary, older people have not been protected by the Government. We oppose strongly the continuous attacks on the elderly which the Government has pursued since taking office. I will not go into all the details as I did on Second Stage, but the argument is that there is a need to look at this in light of what we are saying and the practicalities of forcing people to retire at 65 who then have a gap year before the State will step in. I would be grateful for the observations of the Minister of State in this regard.