Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is no problem. As I said, gender- and equality-proofing of pensions are particularly crucial when we consider the very worrying proposal on the social protection side to potentially extend the requirement from 20 years' worth of contributions to 40 years' worth will leave many people, particularly women, on reduced-rate pensions because they will not have 40 years of contributions in many cases. We know that many women are already on such pensions under the current regime. At the same time we are effectively forcing others to work for 40 years if they are going to have just the base-level State pension, we are increasing tax reliefs for wealthier men in Ireland in terms of private pensions. This has to be examined.

My time is coming to a close, so I will quickly address a number of issues. In terms of climate measures, I hope steps can be taken to really address the long overdue issue of tax relief on aviation fuel. There are a few small measures in place, and things I welcome in the budget in the context of the Stardust scheme and the CervicalCheck scheme. It is important that those schemes be treated as non-taxable. We have a few small measures to benefit and support climate action, but we also have a problem whereby we still have massive subsidies for the fossil fuel industry that are hidden in the budget. Unless we stop subsidising in terms of looking at a path towards ending the subsidies relating to aviation fuel, for example, we will not be able to deliver the kind of action we need to turn around the very worrying climate crisis we have.