Pension inequality for women
Róisín Shortall pressed for urgent action on the 2012 pension changes affecting about 42,000 people, mainly women, and asked what the Cabinet proposal contained. The Minister said an extensive report was ready to go to Cabinet Committee A and reiterated a commitment to fix the anomaly.
This morning, Age Action and a number of other organisations held a press conference to highlight the plight of the 40,000 people, mainly women, who are being denied full pension rights as a result of the 2012 changes, and the groups in question will protest outside the Dáil tomorrow. The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Doherty, gave commitments to address this issue as a matter of urgency.
Six months have elapsed since that commitment was given. I understand that proposals are being brought to Cabinet. I ask the Minister to outline precisely what is being proposed and the timescale involved. Can the Minister give an assurance that we are not talking about a post-2020 move to a total contribution system? Can she assure us that measures will be introduced in the coming months to address the urgent issues that are at stake today?
Comment on this
I am having déjà vu. This is probably the fourth time I have said this today in the House as I took oral questions from 10.30 a.m. An extensive report has been compiled by my officials over the last couple of months. It is absolutely nowhere near six months since this conversation came up in the House; it was just before Christmas, after the budget. I gave a commitment then to fix the issue and the anomaly in respect of the 42,000 people, 60% of whom are women and 40% men, who are currently disadvantaged by the changes that were made in 2012. The report is ready to go to Cabinet Committee A tomorrow afternoon. Pending proposals for acceptance or amendment at that committee meeting, or whatever the results of the meeting are, the report will be going to Cabinet on Tuesday and will be published thereafter.
I have said before and will say again that there is no money to reflect the changes that will be required in the 2018 budget. There will be new money needed to make the changes that will be required to fix the anomaly for the affected people. That will form part of the discussions over the coming weeks. I am not in a position to give any commitments on timelines.