Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At a time when we are asking people to get involved with pensions and when the front page of the Irish Independentis telling us that many people do not have pensions, we should not be putting up more barriers preventing people from doing so. There is merit in parts of the Senator's argument. We keep encouraging people to fend for themselves and to save where they can. However, the pension levy was the greatest smash and grab ever imposed on people who had put away their own money. People had been told by successive Governments to look after themselves and not be entirely reliant on the State pension. They did so but the State came along and said there was a pile of money that people had been saving for their futures out of earned income and that it was going to take a chunk of it, at 0.6% of the pot, for four years in a row. People were hit far more by that than they would have been by water charges or by property tax.

I accept it has stopped now but it should never be done again. It is exactly the same as the State going into someone's bank account, saying someone has money there and it wants a chunk of it. It was wrong. This measure could have unintended consequences of discouraging people from setting up private pensions for themselves. They will then be more reliant on the State and, ultimately, a greater cost to the State at a time when we will have changes in dependency ratios, etc. I will not be voting for this recommendation.