Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for his presence. As he will probably be aware, 86,000 people are awaiting a decision on their entitlement to an increase in the State contributory pension.These people have lost out financially due to a decision made by the Government in 2012. Most of them are women who took time out to look after and rear their children.

I understand that a review is under way in relation to the post-budget 2012 band rates. While I welcome the review, I am disappointed to learn that as of 8 March 2019, only 4,254 reviews have been completed out of a total of almost 90,000. That is less than 4%. It is disappointing to learn of such slow progress. Fianna Fáil has pushed the Government hard to address the anomaly in the contributory State pension scheme which resulted in people losing out financially. These changes have resulted in thousands of people losing out on entitlements they thought they would get in their full State pension. While the good news is that the review is under way, progress is disappointingly slow. I appreciate fully that there is a significant job of work to do here. I also acknowledge that some additional staff recruitment has taken place in the Department to carry out the review. However, notwithstanding the fact that the commitment to undertake the review was made 15 months ago in 2018, only 4% of the 90,000 reviews are complete. That is very disappointing.

As I said earlier, people, most of whom are women, have lost out financially due to the measures adopted by the Government in 2012. They have lost a great deal of money for no other reason than that they took time out to rear their children. The additional delay adds to what they have lost already and is very disappointing for many. Many people have contacted me to express their disappointment and, indeed, anger at the continuing delay. I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, can tell me today how the review is progressing, when he expects it to be completed and when people can expect to receive renewed payments in the form of increases in the State contributory pension.