Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

No, the reason being that the scheme was designed for that purpose. It was extended to the self-employed purely for the contributory retirement pension and contributory survivor's pension and the 4% contribution covers only these pensions. The report on the social insurance fund shows that if an insurance company were managing such a scheme, a 4% contribution would probably only merit a pension of approximately €28 rather than full pension currently received by the self-employed.