Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 13 Dec 2022

Very briefly, Minister, your department does provide for voluntary contributions. If somebody comes in here on a Class S, the voluntary contribution is €500 per year. If they come in on a Class A, it is €5,000 per year. You cannot opt to become a Class S contributor or contributor when you come in here on a voluntary contribution. That is the first thing. The second thing is I am aware of a deputy who lost his seat in this House who qualified for the old age pension just after he lost his seat. I am not sure what his career was beforehand, but the impact of four years on Class K is €20 a week in perpetuity of a loss to his contributor to the old age pension. 20 €20 a week. It does not sound like a lot, but one would hope when you hit 66 that you might continue on for another 20 or 30 years before you depart this world. So I really think it is the penal nature of it. I do not mind if we can work out a scheme whereby after a certain number of years you lose a portion of any contribution or any entitlements you have, and after a few more you lose something else. I do not know. The experts can sit and work that type of thing out. But right now I think of the people that my colleague Senator Burke is talking about who lost their seats, and it is extremely difficult, I understand, to find employment if you have been in this House. And being a person of political interest, even being married to one, being the child of one, is a problem. I took it that it was not really that important until I stuck my card into an ATM machine and could not get any money out. And when I rang the bank and said, what is happening here, they said, you have got some forms to fill in, you did not fill them in. And suddenly I found my wife's account was locked because she did not fill them in. And my children are subject to fill them in, as they are yours and everybody in this House. So I just think that we need to start treating the people in this House as workers. Even when I look at such thing as incremental credit, which has now been restored for every part of the public service, it has not been restored for members of the Oireachtas. And I understand that there are delicacies when you are dealing with these things, but I am a worker first. And I work for the State. I am very fortunate in the job I have, but I am a worker. And I should be treated as any other worker in the State. So I would appreciate it, Minister, if you gave me some positive indication on this. Minister. Thank you. And I just want to say thanks to the deputies for raising this issue. And it is something, you know, anything you have said here is perfectly true. If you are a Class A contributor and you come in to this House, you suddenly have nothing. So depending on how many years you are here, it is going to impact on your contributory pension that you would maybe have paid for before you came into the House from whatever employment. Can I just say that I don't propose to accept the amendment for the simple reason that, you know, and I said it earlier on, to make it, you know, to put this into legislation is just not the appropriate vehicle to, to, uh, for seeking reports. But what I would say is that I am very happy to consider it. I do think, and I said this last year, the best route here is to send a request to the giant Oireachtas Committee, because if we have all party support on this and no party, and everybody agrees on this, then I think that that is the way we need to bring this forward. And, but what I will commit to is providing you with the information and supporting you with any data I can provide you with from my Department of Social Protection in terms of how this can be progressed further. I think the best thing to do as we, as we, as we are here this evening, is to write to the joint Oireachtas Committee for Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands, and ask them to consider a Class K contributions by public office holders. And if you could write to the chairman of that committee and ask them for this issue to be put on the agenda for examination in a budgetary and economic context, then the committee can bring in my officials, they can bring me in, and we can give them the information they need and deal with this once and for all. I am happy to support you in any way I can in doing that. It is true, you are absolutely right. I know one particular member of the Oireachtas and they were not re-elected, but they lost their job during Covid and they had no access to anything because the place was closed down. They could not go and take up their former employment because of the restrictions that were in place and they were in a very difficult place. So I think that is a real example and it can happen in many cases for other people as well. So can I just give you a commitment to give you all the cooperation and all of the information that you can do that I can, but I would say the best way is to bring it to the giant Oireachtas Committee and get them to look at it in detail and come forward to recommendations. When it is on an all-party, agreeable basis that we have all looked at this, I am happy to take on board those recommendations. Senator Crockwell. Minister, thank you very much. That was a very genuine response. There is a report on the county councillors issue which I would ask the joint Oireachtas Committee to take on board because it offers some insight into the historical background of the social protection system and particularly into the benefits. I think the offer you have made is given that we are right up on the wire for social protection and people waiting for payments and we need to get the bill passed. At this stage, with the consent of the House, I am willing to withdraw the amendment based on the Minister's commitment here tonight. Thank you very much, Minister. I appreciate it. Senator Higgins, did you want to come back?