Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this matter. I am not proposing to accept the amendment because it would replicate the work already undertaken by the Commission on Pensions. That commission has completed its work and its report was published on 7 October. I do not know if the Senator has had the chance to read the report but it is hundreds of pages long. To be quite honest, at this stage we have reports coming out of ears that relate to pensions and I want to see action. It is what we need.

The Government is considering the report of the Commission on Pensions and we must consider this in the round. The Government will bring forward proposals at the end of the first quarter of next year. That is the plan. The Oireachtas joint committee is currently hearing submissions on the report of the Commission on Pensions. I compliment the commission on the amount of time and effort it has put into this. There are many hours of consideration and work in it. It did a public consultation included in that work. Many of the matters raised by the Senator have been considered. As I said, this is a very comprehensive report that takes account of an assessment of various analyses of population, labour force, expenditure projections, an examination of international approaches and responses to an extensive consultation process. The commission's technical sub-committee's working papers detail an extensive public consultation process and the submissions made to the commission are available on the website at www.pensionscommission.gov.ie.

All of the proposals in the report were gender, equality and poverty-proofed. I take the Senator's point about women, who have lost out in the past in this country. There was a time when women got married, they had to stop working. There are many women out there who were part of a business and were self-employed who got to retirement with nothing there for them except what their husbands or partners managed to accrue in PRSI contributions. We will be looking at this through the work of the Commission on Pensions.