Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome. First and foremost, I want to congratulate him and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, on what has been a very good social welfare budget. It clearly set out to look after the less well-off in our society, which is really good.

I want to devote my time today to speaking about class K PRSI. I delivered a rapporteur's report on class K PRSI in 2016, which I have here and which I will make available to the Minister. Let us talk about social insurance. Social insurance is about the many contributing to look after the few. People who get sick, become infirm or are of old age are looked after through the social insurance system. Is anybody in this country willing to pay for an insurance policy that they can never draw down anything from? Anybody paying class K PRSI can never ever benefit from the social protection system. My colleague, Senator Burke, is 100% correct. Many thousands of people were paying class K contributions, but there are now around 1,000 or 1,200 people in the State paying it. It mainly applies to members of the Judiciary and Members of the Oireachtas.

Most of us in the Oireachtas are in what might be regarded as precarious employment. At any stage, the electorate can decide it has had enough of us and off we go into the sunset. Take the election of 2020 as an example. A number of Members of this House and the Lower House lost their seats in the middle of a pandemic. They found themselves unemployed. They had paid 4% of their salary throughout their term in the Oireachtas, yet they had no recourse to social protection or welfare payments when they found themselves unemployed. We were in the middle of a pandemic, so they could not look for work. That is simply unacceptable.

When I saw the PRSI being paid by county councillors, I raised a High Court action as a defendant, along with the number of county councillors. The case was never heard; it was settled outside the High Court. It was settled on the basis that class K PRSI is unconstitutional. There is no way on God's earth that the Minister's Department can justify the taking 4% of my salary from an insurance perspective and giving me absolutely nothing for it.

Not only that, by taking class K PRSI the Minister has eliminated me from all of the social protection guarantees that are available. I do not get dental or optical benefits or a contributory old age pension. If I do get such a pension, it will be impacted by virtue of the fact that I do not have the required number of contributions over the period stated. It is, in fact, a tax on public service for judges and Members of the Oireachtas. That has been accepted by the Department when it came to county councillors. It is now time to rectify the situation and decide whether Members of this House should be on class S, class A or whatever class the Minister wants. Ultimately, the Department should not take money out of our salaries and deny us the same protections that every other employee in the country is entitled to.

Moreover, in this precarious employment, irrespective of what age we are, we pay full PRSI. We will continue to do so until we go to the grave or are kicked out of the House. That is simply unacceptable. We are workers, the same as any other workers in the country. It is my intention to bring forward a number of amendments in the coming days. This simply cannot continue. It is wrong. The Department knows it is wrong, otherwise why would it have settled the case with the county councillors? It would not have settled it had it known they were right because the State is well known for fighting cases to the bitter end and, in some cases, fighting until such time as the plaintiff dies rather than settle.

In the case of class K PRSI and county councillors, the State settled straight away. Even in settling the case and moving county councillors to class S, the State denied them the retrospective recognition of the PRSI they had paid. Members of local authorities who moved to class A were still not able to avail of a full contributory old age pension, dental and optical benefits and the like. Moving people onto class S is not enough. The Department has taken 4% of our salary, the same as it takes from every other employee in the country.

People watching this today will say, "Bloody politicians looking after themselves". Thank you. I will look after myself. It is my job to look after myself. I have a family, the same as every other worker in this country and I am entitled to look after my family and make sure they benefit from the contributions that I have made throughout my working life. From that point of view, I make no apology. I will fight for any worker in this country who is being denied something they are entitled to.

I spent a number of years of my life in trade unionism, including two years of my life at the very top of the Teachers Union of Ireland as its president. I am very much aware of the needs and rights of workers and what workers should get. Just because we put ourselves forward for election is no reason why we should hide from the justifiable allowances, supports and protections that are built into our system.

For 101 years, we have looked after workers in this country.We have an excellent social welfare system in place. So many things were brought in as a result of the financial emergency measures in the public interest. Looking at the debate on class K, it was introduced on Report Stage of the Bill by the Minister at the time, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív. Every debate that took place questioned the legality of what was being done. Yet it was rammed through at the time. I understand why that happened. The country was in pretty dire straits. I had to explain to my members when I was president of the teachers' union why they were about to take a massive pay cut. Most workers in this country took that pay cut. We helped to build this country back up again. Why should we continue to penalise Members of this House? I cannot remember the exact number but there are five or six members of the previous Government, Dáil and Seanad who lost their seats during the election and had absolutely nothing to fall back on. That is wrong in every sense of the word.

Before people jump to all sorts of conclusions about my gold-plated pension, I am caught like every other worker in the country by the single pension Act. There are no gold-plated pensions for anybody in the public service anymore. We have destroyed public service pensions in the way we have set about them and that is why we are losing gardaí and members of the Defence Forces and why some of the high flyers in the public service are going into the private sector, because there is no benefit in remaining in the public sector anymore. I ask the Minister of State to save us all an awful lot of trouble when we bring forward amendments. I am quite happy to engage with the officials who are here with him and bring the amendments to them to try to get as smooth a passage as we can from class K to whatever other class.

I am not prepared to sit back and allow class K to continue indefinitely. I have asked for this in every budget since 2016. If I cannot get the amendments through on this occasion, I will do what I did back in 2016 and revert to the High Court and we will have it out there. For God's sake, please spare me and the State a waste of time in going down to the High Court to prove what we already know, which is that class K PRSI is unconstitutional. If you want to tax me for being a Senator, tax me. Take 4% of my salary as a tax but call it a tax and take it through the tax system, through the Revenue Commissioners. Do not take my contributions through PRSI, which I will depend on as I approach my advancing years, which are catching up on me very fast. Do not take my pension. Do not take a part of my pension. Leave me with the benefits I have been paying for all my life. Just because somebody served in the Oireachtas for five years, for that to impact their old age pension and their entitlements is criminal as far as I am concerned. I think I have ranted quite enough now. I will bring forward very calm amendments when we get to Committee Stage. I thank the Minister of State for his time.