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

I thank the Senators for raising this issue. Everything they have said here is perfectly true. If someone who is a class A contributor comes into this House, they suddenly have nothing. The number of years they spend here will have an impact on their contributory pension, which they may have paid for before they came into the House from whatever form of employment they may have been in.

I do not propose to accept this amendment for the simple reason that this legislation, as I said earlier, is not the appropriate vehicle for seeking reports. However, I am very happy to consider it. As I said last year, the best route here is to send a request to the joint Oireachtas committee. If we have all parties’ support on this, and if everybody agrees on it, that is the way we need to bring it forward. I will commit to providing the Senators with the information and supporting them with any data I can provide from the Department of Social Protection in terms of how this can be progressed further.

The best thing to do as we are here this evening is to write to the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands to ask it to consider class K contributions by public office holders. The Senator could write to the Chair of that committee and ask for this issue to be put on the agenda for examination in a budgetary and economic context.The committee can bring me or my officials before it and we can give it the information it needs to deal with this matter once and for all. I am happy to support the Senator in any way I can to do that. The Senator is right. I know Members of the Oireachtas who were not re-elected and lost their jobs during the pandemic. They had no access to anything because the place was closed down. They could not take up their former employment because of the restrictions that were in place. They were in a difficult place. That is a real example of a situation that can arise for many others.

I commit to the Senator that I will give him as much co-operation and information as I can. The best way forward is to bring the matter to the committee, ask it to consider it in detail and come forward with recommendations. When we have all looked at the issue and there is agreement across all parties, I will be happy to take those recommendations on board.