Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the changes to allow people to voluntarily acquire credits for up to five years to make up any shortfall in calculating their non-contributory old age pension payments. They will allow people to take career breaks and provide flexibility when people decide to leave the workforce for whatever reason. I acknowledge and compliment the changes made in favour of self-employed persons and councillors. We have seen the restoration of payments under the farm assist scheme and for lone parents, particularly single mothers. This is all very good, but a group which needs attention and to be looked after comprises the 22,300 women in receipt of a decreased contributory State pension because they took time out during their working lives to look after their families. They are on a reduced pension because of changes made in 2012. We need to revisit this issue because if the women concerned had worked less in a more compact period of time, they would be in receipt of a larger pension. This is an issue that particularly affects women because there was no such thing as a child care service years ago, other than the help provided by the extended family. Women in many careers, particularly in the public service, had to leave their jobs and are being punished unfairly because of the changes made. In fairness to these women who have worked hard all of their lives and raised their families, we should look at what can be done to accommodate them and not leave them in a situation where, in some cases, because they worked for just a few months, then took a career break and returned to the workforce a number of years later, they are on a decreased pension. If they had never worked at all, they would now be in receipt of a full pension. This is a serious issue. Deputy Leo Varadkar, has been a reforming Minister for Social Protection and I would like him to come to the House for a discussion on this issue to see how we might implement some change to benefit the women concerned. I acknowledge it is the central theme of the Age Action report being launched today. I have made many representations on behalf of the women affected and would like to see changes made.