We move to the Regional Group of Independents and Deputy Fitzpatrick.

The Interdepartmental Pensions Reform and Taxation group was established to carry out a number of tasks related to pension reform. Its roadmap sets out the need to promote long term pension saving to address income inadequacy, in particular for low-income earners. The main income for a majority of older people is a pension. Last week I had a meeting with the Ministers for Finance and for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform at which I called for a thorough review of tax credits and the social welfare system to ensure that employment and paying into a pension scheme is financially rewarding because at the moment, this is not true.

One of my constituents, aged 61, who came to my clinic last week is barely making ends meet. He has lost his job and is forced to live on a small pension of €1,100 per month, or €275 per week. The issue I have is that after working for 40 years, this man is being punished for paying into a private pension. Let me explain why. This man, who is five years off pension age, applied for a jobseeker's payment while he tries to find a new job. He was offered a flat, qualified adult payment of €366 per week for himself and his wife. However, because he is getting a private pension payment, his jobseeker's payment was means-tested, resulting in a deduction of €269 off the flat, qualified adult rate of €366. This man and woman have to live on €275 from his private pension plus a top-up of only €87 from the Department of Social Protection, a total of €372 per week for two adults to survive. The system is wrong. How can we expect a man and his wife to survive on that? They are already struggling to put food on the table and heat their home. They cannot afford to maintain their house. This is only set to get worse as the winter progresses. The means test needs to be re-evaluated immediately. This couple is only €6 better off by having a private pension than by claiming social welfare. They might as well not have a pension. In fact, they are being penalised for contributing to a pension scheme. They have no savings and no other income. They are expected to live on €366 per week.

Will the Government consider, by way of the Finance Bill and the upcoming budget, overturning this means test? It is not fit for purpose. I am talking about people with small pensions; I am not talking about people who are putting hundreds of thousands of euro into pension schemes. Families are coming into me a lot where the husband has worked for 40 years and the wife has looked after the children for the past 30 or 40 years. They have contributed to a pension but the husband has lost his job. Had he not worked for 40 years but claimed social welfare, and had his wife also claimed social welfare, they would be better off by nearly €150 per week. This Government, and the Minister for Finance in particular, has been encouraging people to think about the future and the fact that one cannot really survive on jobseeker's payments or the State pension. It has been telling them that they need to have a private pension. How can I encourage people on small incomes who come to my constituency office to contribute to a private pension when these things are happening?

I have the names and contact details for these people and will give them to the Tánaiste later. I am finding it very hard to look them in the eye. Can he please tell me that something will be done in the budget next week for these people?

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and for raising a more general issue, through an individual case that has come to his constituency office, that highlights wider issues in terms of pension entitlements, pension contributions and the jobseeker's allowance. I think the Deputy said that the person is 61 years of age.

Yes.

He has worked for 40 years, to be fair. The Department of Social Protection is available to help him in sourcing alternative employment, if that is-----

No help-----

It is there-----

It is not there.

It is there and it should be there. I will certainly take the details from the Deputy but it is there and the office exists to try to help people to secure alternative employment. I do not know the background of the means test and the issues that were assessed or not assessed. Normally the assessment involves the household's income, savings, shares, investments or property, apart from a person's home. The Deputy has made it clear that the person has no savings.

Nothing.

I will revert to the Minister for Social Protection and I ask the Deputy to send me on the details so the case can be examined more closely. I cannot discuss individual cases on the floor of the House. I do not know the full background to it but, obviously, the Government is anxious to incentivise people to work, in the first instance, but also to ensure that there would be basic amounts available to enable people to survive. The Deputy's basic point is that the private pension is militating against the person getting a decent jobseeker's allowance payment. That is the key point he is making here. That may have something to do with the thresholds or other factors of which I am not aware in respect of the details of the case itself. Nonetheless, if the Deputy can send me on the details, I will certainly pursue it. If there are policy implications, we can pursue those in the budgetary context or through the social welfare Bill arising from the budget.

I find the Minister for Finance very approachable and he is a very good Minister but I want to relay the facts of this case again. This man has worked for 40 years. He is 61 years old and his wife is 60. He worked for 40 years and she stayed at home to mind their children. He contributed towards a small pension, amounting to approximately €270 per week. When he applied for jobseeker's payment because he is looking for a job, the Department offered him €97 on top of his pension, giving him a total of €366. That does not seem right.

Did he get jobseeker's benefit?

We are all getting older. The Government is encouraging people to contribute to pension schemes and they are doing so. However, in this case, the family would have been better off not working. If the woman was getting a social welfare payment and her husband was also getting one, they would be getting nearly €500 per week. He has contributed for the past 40 years but he has lost his job. When they sat in my office last Friday, I did not believe them but when I got on to the Department of Social Protection, I found out that the facts were true. That is the way it is. The Government wants people to contribute to pension schemes but if they are made redundant and draw down that pension, it is means-tested. I could understand this if they were getting €500 or €1,000 per week in pension payments but they are not; they are only getting a small payment. Their family is reared. They are afraid that if something breaks down in their house, they will not be able to afford to fix it. They were embarrassed, to be honest, when they came in to see me, even though I know them pretty well. They were embarrassed to come in to see me to tell me about their problem.

The time is up Deputy, please.

The Minister for Finance must acknowledge that there is something seriously wrong here.

I presume he would have received jobseeker's benefit for nine months.

I am talking about the present.

He would have gotten nine months of jobseeker's benefit when he became unemployed, which would have been a higher payment, based on his contributions, than the jobseeker's allowance. I presume the nine-month period has elapsed and now he is on jobseeker's allowance. Exceptional needs payments are available if any particular issues arise but again, I do not have the background to the case. The Minister has been looking at options in terms of broader pension reforms and PRSI treatment but that would potentially involve increasing PRSI over time with a view to lengthening the period a person would be in receipt of jobseeker's benefit and also increasing the level of benefit to more closely approximate the salary the person had been earning prior to being rendered unemployed. Reforms are required but they have significant resource implications. The Minister has been examining that issue, which was also an issue in the past. Historically, if someone was unemployed, he or she might have gotten up to two thirds or 60% of his or her wage back in the day. That was changed and reformed. The balance has always been around job incentivisation but we learned from Covid that people can lose their jobs through no fault of their own-----

Thank you Tánaiste, we are over time.

-----and, therefore, they need a cushion to get them through difficult periods. Again, I thank the Deputy for raising this matter.