Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join other Senators in welcoming the Minister of State to the House. I am aware that he is also interested in some of these issues in his brief. I look forward to engaging on them in greater depth on Committee Stage with the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Doherty.

I will touch on a couple of the key issues, one of which is the fundamental issue of pensions. Pensions account for the largest portion of the budget. A pensions equality issue related to the spouses of those in civil partnerships has been addressed in the Bill, as the Minister of State noted. Senators on the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection heard testimony and received submissions on this aspect of pensions equality, and I welcome the progress made on it.

Another key issue around equality and pensions is the deep inequality in the contributory pension system as experienced by women. I was very aware of this during my time working with the Older and Bolder alliance and with the National Women's Council of Ireland. I welcome some aspects of the new proposal in respect of the changes that were made in 2012, but there are also some concerns, which I need to flag. It is positive that the issue of the artificial gaps that had been inserted into the averaging system, which were periods in which people were delivering care or providing support in the home, has been addressed. It is great to see a greater recognition of care. For years, I pushed the idea that we should recognise care and its contribution in a very real and formal way. I continue to believe that we should recognise care not simply with credits towards a pension, but also in terms of re-entry credits to enable those who have been giving care for a period of time to access schemes such as the back to education programme. It should be possible to use credits to progress. People can become invisible in the system. If they are out of the system delivering care for two or four years, they can often present cold to an Intreo office. They should know that they have credits behind them when making that contact.

While some work has been done in closing the gap, unfortunately there is also a pushing out of the goalposts. I deeply regret that, in the steps that have been taken, the decision was made not to stick to the requirement for 20 years or 1,040 contributions, as is currently the case, and not to implement the commitment to introduce the 30 years threshold set out in the pension reform plans. The latter was the total contribution approach we anticipated and would have required 1,560 contributions. While the gap created for the persons affected by the 2012 changes, many of whom are women, is being addressed, the goalposts have shifted and their payments will be calculated from a radius of 40 years of contributions, which amounts to 2,080 contributions. It is important that we put down the marker on this. We are constantly being told that nothing has been finally decided. When the total contribution approach is introduced in 2020, it must be based on 30 years of contributions, which is still a substantial increase on the requirement for 20 years of total contributions. If the new approach is based on 40 years of contributions, a large swathe of the population will again find themselves on a reduced rate of the contributory pension. We must be clear, as ICTU and others have been, that the system must be based on 30 years of contributions because that at least has been planned for.

On a related issue, I want to lend support to some of the comments made by my colleague on youth payments. Young people and their contribution are the backbone of our pension system. They must feel valued. Part of valuing them is to ensure they have proper social welfare payments and that we do not in any way incentivise them to feel they must or should travel to other countries to work or to be valued.

I welcome the increase in payments across the board and the removal of requirement that employment must be rehabilitative in nature to qualify for payment of the disability allowance, the blind pension and so forth. These issues arose at a special and unusual joint meeting of three committees, namely, the Joint Committees on Health, Education and Skills and Employment Affairs and Social Protection. They met to examine the obstacles faced by persons with a disability in accessing, holding and maintaining employment. This measure is a small step and I hope many of the other measures discussed in the meeting of the three committees will also be taken on board by the three Departments in question. This is the first good indication that people may be listening to those concerns.

I welcome the supports for lone parents and one-parent families, an issue that has been a key concern of mine and the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection. I recognise that two of our concerns have been addressed. It is good that there will be a report on the means testing of maintenance. I strongly believe that we need to have a national maintenance body. This report will, I hope, help to point us towards some of the issues with regard to maintenance.

I also welcome the qualified child rate increase but I still deeply regret that the jobseeker's transitional payment has not been extended until a qualified child is 18 years of age. There is a concern currently that when a child reaches 14 years of age a lone parent is required to be available for full-time work. The parent may well be available for full-time employment but we know that children who need extra payments when they are teenagers sometimes also need extra care. This is why the flexibility of the jobseeker's transitional payment, which recognises the mix of care and availability for employment, should be the prevailing payment until a child is 18.

The review of the carer's allowance is welcome. The Minister of State has spoken in the House on care, an issue that needs to be recognised and examined. There are also gaps in the pension system for those who are in receipt of carer's allowance, for example, people who have returned from abroad to care for a relative can find that they are not credited with pension contributions for the pension they will receive in later years.

I welcome the review on the impacts of Brexit, which is a key area, especially when we consider the large number of people who have shared pension arrangements between Ireland and the UK. They currently have mechanisms available to them under EU law to ensure the sharing of data on their combined pension entitlements.

A couple of areas that are not covered in the Bill but which are part of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act are the public services card and the single customer view dataset. There are very serious concerns, some of which featured in the newspapers today, about the attitude of the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to data protection. There are also concerns about supports for the data protection officer. I am aware that the Data Protection Commissioner has done some investigation on various issues in this area. I will seek to ensure safeguards are in place in order that we do not move ahead of the safe regulation we have in place. I will address those issues on Committee Stage.

I thank the Minister of State. There is a sense in some areas of the Bill that concerns are being listened to, which is positive.