Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 15 seeks a report on the restoration of the right to retire at 65. This right is fundamental to our social contract. For several years now, we have been bombarded by messaging around how unaffordable our current pension system is. We are being steadily primed by conservative voices to accept the degradation of something so fundamental to our comfort and dignity as humans, namely, the right to retire. We have been repeatedly told the slow erosion of our pensions is not an ideological matter, rather merely a technical one. The reality contradicts this framing, which is in fact deeply ideological.

According to the IDA and countless other reports, Ireland has the youngest population in Europe, with one third of the population under 25 years of age. Despite this demographic reality, we came very close in the last programme for Government to being one of the few countries in Europe to push the pension age up to 67. The only other states in Europe to have taken this step I believe are Italy, Greece, Germany and Norway. These are countries with either far older populations or far more difficult economic circumstances. Even with the current threshold of 66, we are still among the most regressive states in this regard.

One would never think this from listening to conservative voices. We are expected to believe the State pension is a luxury we are recklessly clinging onto. Despite the fact we are supposedly one of the wealthiest countries in Europe with a budget surplus expected to last for years to come and with one of the lowest pension burdens and youngest populations, we find ourselves unable to hold up our end of the bargain and unable to sustain our workers' right to retire. Rather than benefiting from the wealth that supposedly flows into our country, low-income workers around the country are told they must make yet more sacrifices at the end of their long working lives. They must work one or two years longer, and this is unacceptable. The framing that people at the end of their working lives - many after putting in decades of hard manual labour - must now defer their retirement for another year is purely ideological.

There are many ways the Social Insurance Fund could be topped up. Far higher social insurance burdens could put on the huge multinationals that make their billions here. Instead, it is workers who are asked to bear the burden, and this is wrong. Every worker in this country should have the right to retire at 65 and that right must be restored. I urge the Minister to accept this amendment.