Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would not like her to be in the Minister of State's position because she seems to have garnered the market in that regard.

There seems to be an imbalance in the Government's thinking on pensions in general. I put forward the following view to the Minister of State. On the one hand, the Government has talked about extending the age of eligibility for the contributory and non-contributory old age pensions while, on the other, the Government's policy over the past five years has made it less attractive for younger workers to take out pension plans. I cannot see how the Government can square the circle in this regard.

The Minister of State has said that jobseeker's allowance will be provided. I fully agree with him that there should not be a mandatory age of retirement. The Minister of State and Senator Moloney are right in terms of the private sector. In the public sector and semi-State bodies, once a person reaches 65 years he or she must retire regardless of how much expertise he or she possesses. There has been an exodus of senior personnel in their late 50s from the Garda Síochána, which means expertise has been lost. I am sure there are many other professions that I could mention. There is something inherently wrong in this trend that has developed over the years. I applaud the Government when it takes initiatives along these lines but this issue seems to have fallen through the cracks. Perhaps that is due to addressing other pressures such as fire brigade issues, allowances and dealing with various sectors of the community.

The pension timebomb is very real, and I will score a political point by saying the following. Charlie McCreevy, although criticised, should be complimented on introducing the National Pensions Reserve Fund, admittedly at a time when the economy was expanding. It was a brilliant initiative because it recognised, even in the early 2000s, that by 2025, 2030 or 2040 there would be a very real problem, for whatever government, in addressing public service pensions as public servants pay less, apart altogether from the private sector.

I do not expect the Minister of State to wave a magic wand to deal with the issue but I want to put the following on the record. I believe that it has been folly in light of the pension timebomb, and I would say the same if a Fianna Fáil-led Administration had done so, to penalise younger workers who want to take out pension plans. The Government should encourage them to do so by having lower and less penal tax rates, thus making it more attractive for people to take out pensions.I remember being advised to take out a pension plan when I was in my 20s or 30s but I did not do it until much later. On a personal level, I hope the Minister of State is back in Government but whatever time is left to him as a Minister I hope the issue of encouraging more young workers to take out private pension plans is looked at in the broadest sense. Otherwise we will go bankrupt. He gave us the figures on demographics and everything else and it is a pity that people who want to continue working are forced, under a mandatory company policy or something else, to retire. Not all people find themselves in a financially straitened situation because of one year and there is a safety net but there seems to be an imbalance. If we are going to extend eligibility, year by year, over the next decade we should put mechanisms in place on the other side of the equation to address the pensions timebomb.