Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support this amendment. The issue needs to be examined. We talk about motivating people to enter public life and to become councillors. Of all the jobs a person could take, running for election is one of the riskiest. Most jobs do not have a guaranteed point at which you may randomly be fired after three or four years. To have a situation where you know that subsequent to that period of time you are not going to have access to social protection schemes or to supports and your family will not have access to that because the period of time, especially for councillors, is going to be longer than the two years' previous contributions. People are effectively not just taking the risk in running for public office but they are taking a very serious risk in regard to their family’s security after the fact. We should not add jeopardy. It should not be a situation where only those who are very financially secure feel that they can run for public office. Not everyone will be affected by Class K. Those who will be affected by it will not be able to make the choice to run for public office. That is a cohort of the public who are not necessarily already represented as much as we would like in our political system.

This is going to affect diversity. We know this because the records show that women, because of various social factors, tend to be more risk-averse and less willing to take a risk in regard to their families’ income. It affects women going into this area as well. I ask the Minister to look at how this dovetails with pensions. I have many concerns around some of the proposals on pensions. If we move to a 30-year contributory requirement on pensions that will have an impact. Again I will indicate now that I will be absolutely opposed to any move to a 40-year contributory requirement. That would be disastrous. If we move to that we almost guarantee that anybody who spent four years or eight years of their life as a councillor is not going to qualify for a full pension and will therefore find themselves on a reduced-rate pension. That is the concern. The contributory pension may keep pace with inflation but the reduced-rate pension can be far less. We are condemning people not just in the immediate aftermath of a period of public service but in the long term in regard to their pension qualification. We have raised this issue for many years but it needs to be addressed. It affects everybody.The key point is that it has to begin at least by addressing it in terms of local councillors.