Good morning,
Pensions policy rarely gets the voters’ collective pulse racing – although there have been notable exceptions, such as during the 2020 general election when the State pension age became a major campaign trail issue. However, it is one of two major reforms likely to get an outing before Christmas that sum up challenges facing the Government.
Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary will update Cabinet this morning on the last steps being put in place before MyFutureFund, the State’s auto-enrolment scheme, is rolled out next year. As the last OECD country to put something like this in place, it’s clear that the allure to tackle this important-but-difficult problem has not proved irresistible for successive governments.
It’s not hard to see why: much like workers themselves, it can be easier for governments to long-finger pension policy. There’s simply always a more pressing problem that needs funding, where the benefits of applying State cash might accrue more quickly to voters and politicians.
But it falls to Calleary to finally enact this, and to meet any criticism that comes his way once wages and firms’ coffers are depleted by contributions in the new year. The Mayo TD will be watchful of the risk of pensions becoming a political landmine as he tries to defuse the oft-cited pensions time bomb.
Meanwhile, his Fianna Fáil colleague Minister for Children Norma Foley is expected to bring the first phase of the Government’s childcare action plan to Cabinet next week. The pledge for €200 per month, per child childcare is perhaps the most ambitious – nay fanciful – in the Programme for Government. The costs remain punitive, with many (voting) families still saddled with the equivalent of a second mortgage. Foley is expected to detail what steps can be taken to improve the situation in the short term, but it’s a thorny policy problem.
Taken together, the two policies go to the core of the Coalition’s pitch to voters: that it will address chronic issues in planning, delivery and provision, while also curing the pressing and acute symptoms of the cost-of-living crisis. It has signalled, in housing and elsewhere, that it believes short-term pain can be parlayed into long-term gain within this electoral cycle.
But getting the time and space to test this theory while under pressure from voters and the Opposition is another thing entirely.
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Playbook
The political day begins with Cabinet meeting at Government Buildings: here’s Harry McGee’s tee-up
The week’s Dáil action starts from 2pm with Leaders’ Questions, before Questions on Policy or Legislation. Sinn Féin has a motion on Assessment of Needs for access to services in the evening, before Simon Harris takes oral questions in the evening as Minister for Finance.
The full schedule is here
The Seanad sits from 1pm when it takes Commencement Matters, with Government business later in the afternoon given over to committee stage of the Finance Bill, followed by the same for the Mental Health Bill, before adjourning at 8pm.
Here’s the full schedule
The Irish Farmers Association and journalists from the Irish Farmers Journal are in before the Agriculture Committee to discuss Mercosur at 11am, while the Foreign Affairs Committee hears testimony on the Sumud Flotilla at 3pm. Minister for Housing James Browne is in to talk about the Coalition’s new housing plan at the Housing Committee at the same time. At 6pm, the Health Committee is having a meeting on alcohol’s place in the drugs strategy.
Here’s the full schedule
It’s a busy day around Leinster House. Autism campaigner Cara Darmody is resuming a sleepout protest on Kildare Street. The weather will be a story today, as Storm Bram brings the risk of flooding around the coast.
The final Operation Kenova report on the Stakeknife investigations is due to be published in Belfast later this morning.
Minister for Children Norma Foley is holding a media briefing at lunchtime on plans for the assessment of needs process, while Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon will give an update on the nitrates directive.
EU Council president Antonio Costa is in town, and there will be a press conference around lunchtime at Government Buildings.
