Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting former comrades from the SIPTU trade union alongside people from Age Action Ireland, the National Women's Council of Ireland, the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament and Active Retirement Ireland.They are all part of the Pension Promise campaign. These very effective campaigners brought us the Stop 67 campaign before the most recent election. That campaign had a tremendous impact on the election. Outside the gates of Leinster House today, they are basically calling the Government to account over the promise it made to bring pensions up to the equivalent of 34% of average earnings. That commitment is in the programme for Government. Like so many other promises this Government has made, it has clearly been abandoned. Right now, achieving that equivalency would require an increase of €53 in pensions. We all accept that will not be practicable to achieve in the budget, but the lack of planning during this Government’s term in office to hit that target is entirely unacceptable, particularly when one considers that one in five pensioners is at risk of poverty, as we know from the 2022 survey of income and living conditions. One in three pensioners living alone is at risk of poverty. Those figures have dramatically increased due to the cost-of-living crisis. I wish to hold the Government to account for the promise it put in its manifesto but has clearly abandoned. I am calling for a debate on this topic. We need to debate how we can improve pension payments sustainably for everybody. That promise needs to be kept. A roadmap needs to be made to ensure it is kept.

The second issue I wish to raise is that of early years educators. There are real difficulties at the joint labour committee at the moment. It seems that the employer side, including the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, which was outside these buildings last week, proposed a pay increase of 65 cent for early years educators. In other words, instead of getting the early years educators getting €13 an hour, which all present would agree is entirely inadequate, the employers are proposing €13.65. That is not in any way acceptable. I did not hear that message last week when they were outside the gates of the Parliament. It is clear a sustainable pay rise is needed to enable people to have a career in early years education. It is interesting to note that the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, said he allocated €200 million for pay increases in the budget last year. According to SIPTU, only €55 million of that has been spent on pay increases. There is a real difference between what the employers’ group is saying, with its offer of a pay increase of 65 cent an hour, and what the unions are saying. It is clear we need to move to a publicly funded childcare model. That is what the National Women’s Council of Ireland, NWCI, has called for. My party, Sinn Féin, has been seeking for that to be done for some time. That is the debate we need to have in order to secure a real future for childcare and early years educators. Let us have that debate in this Chamber as soon as possible. We cannot sit through another budget where workers on the front line continue on wages that are entirely unacceptable in this day and age.