Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am wearing my pin today for Lá Fhéile Bhríde. It is fitting that today, one of the strongest women in Irish representation, Antoinette Cunningham of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, is retiring. Antoinette leaves behind some fantastic achievements, including access to the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court for members of An Garda Síochána. She will be a tough act to follow, and any of us who have watched interviews over the years with Antoinette will have seen that she is a tough woman in her job. I wish her all the best for the future. Whatever challenge she takes on, I doubt she is going to sit at home and do nothing. She was a tremendous representative and it is important that we recognise some of the great women who led Irish trade unionism, which sort of belies the notion that the Constitution requires all women to stay at home, as stated by the Minister. I could not let that go.

When the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2013 was introduced, as part of what was happening in the Department of public expenditure and reform, one of the lunatic decisions that was made forced members of An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces, when they retire, to sign on to the jobseeker's payment for the second half of their pension. Their pensions are now co-ordinated with the social welfare contributory old age pension. They have to go and lie, and say they are available for work when they are not. Members of An Garda Síochána spend 40 years of their lives upholding the law but they cannot access the supplementary part of their pension unless they lie. Moreover, members of An Garda Síochána have to go into the dole office or the post office to sign on for the jobseeker's payment, and frequently find themselves standing with people they arrested maybe a week or two ago. It is just wrong in every sense of the word, and I wonder if we could have a debate on that in this House with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform.