Seanad debates

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

10:30 am

Photo of Rose Conway WalshRose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was shocked but not surprised to read at the weekend that the partners and spouses of people who receive the State contributory pension are now being forensically audited and means tested by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. In some cases, after means-testing, payments have been reduced or stopped altogether. The process in itself is really frightening for people. If any of us here was demanded to lay bare all of our financial transactions how would we feel? Are these people not entitled to a level of privacy to live out their lives? Such auditing is totally wrong. Many of these people will have an income that is well below the means test but they still have to go through the whole process and produce bank statements and everything else. There is something fundamentally wrong about that. Some people in receipt of pensions have been asked to keep receipts for up to four years in case an audit is carried out in the future. Also, there are people who are followed beyond the grave because when people die, Revenue and the State bodies come looking to see if people made a mistake and assess whether they counted everything. One must remember that some people do not enjoy good health. They may have dementia or other illnesses that do not allow them to read and communicate in the way that these Departments might want them to do so.

It has been mentioned that a saving of €15.7 million has been made already. It is also planned that 6,500 assessments will be carried out in the future. There are elderly people across this State who are really worried whether they will be part of the 6,500 assessments. We also have to remember that many of these people will be elderly women. They will be women whose spouses already get a contributory pension but then they are not entitled to any means themselves. This means that the relevant Departments have a figure in mind and know how much they want to recoup this year. It amazes me how Revenue and other State bodies can plan and execute with such accuracy the moneys they want to recoup from elderly people who have contributed so much throughout their lives, whether that be through childcare, care of the elderly, working outside or within the home or as community volunteers. The State bodies are forensic in how they go about assessments and inspections. Let us contrast that situation with the vast sums of taxpayers' money we have seen, say, in the overrun for the national children's hospital where figures have increased by millions. Let us also contrast that to the situation for thousands of people who have chronic and lifelong illnesses. Such people are subject to regular assessment and constant examination. I wonder where these Departments are coming from. Who instructs them to really antagonise these people? I am not saying that people should get something that they are not entitled to. Really, the fear around all of this is not right. The State proves itself well able to account for every cent and, indeed, it is willing to take back moneys in the case of these vulnerable individuals. If only a semblance of the same vigilance was present in the Department of Health and the Department of Finance then we might not be looking at a situation where so many projects are delayed or scrapped to cover the overruns and the other things while millions of euro is wasted. I ask the Government to consider this matter. I ask the Leader to arrange a debate that specifically deals with pensions. We must consider the contrast between how the millionaires and billionaires are treated in this country and then how ordinary citizens and elderly people are treated in terms of entitlements and taxation.

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