Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Let us talk our way through it. I do not have typical profiles of persons who contribute to additional voluntary contributions, AVCs, but from constituency experience, many of the people I come across who have AVCs are women whose career was interrupted because they spent some time looking after family or people who returned home after several years working abroad who wanted to enhance their pension schemes, again because of the shortness of their career. The same would apply to persons who had long periods of unemployment, or indeed short periods of unemployment, that interrupted their contribution record.

In terms of somebody who has additional voluntary contributions, it is their own money. We are enabling them to take out 30% of what they put in. When one's pension matures, it is different because one is getting a pension arising from the pension fund. If there is no fund in the public service, for example, one is not taking out what one put in. One is getting the benefit of the scheme in whatever way that scheme is designed. They are different situations. In this case somebody is accessing the money they put in by way of voluntary contribution. If they wait until it matures, the person on the occupational pension is getting the benefit of the pension scheme, whatever that may be. In many cases across the public service there was no fund until various amendments were made. There was not much of a connection between the contributions made and the benefits that accrued subsequently. That was changed some years ago when significant additional pension contributions were levied on public servants.