Dr. Seán Healy:

We propose that there should be a substantial off-the-books investment in a program to generate jobs. All of the proposals are in the document.

The Chairman asked me about the universal pension proposal. What we are doing is straightforward enough. We are proposing that the Government does two things in the budget. On the one side it should offer tax relief at the standard rate for pension contributions so that it is no longer available at 41%. At the moment some 80% of pension contribution tax breaks go to top 20% of earners. Therefore the richest 20% in the country get 80% benefit from the tax break. For the sake of consistency in policy, coherence and trying to benefit everybody, it would be much more sensible to stop that, make it available at the 20% rate for everybody and use the money not to write off debt but to create a universal pension. At the moment there is a need for that type of initiative. Some 46,000 women in Ireland do not have a right to a pension of any kind and never will. This is an issue that has been ignored by successive governments for three decades. It is an historical issue about how pensions developed in Ireland. People never got into the system or were taken out of the system going back to the times of the marriage bar and such like. The 46,000 women would be covered in this because it would be universal. Everybody at 66 years of age would get-----