Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Aidan McLoughlin mentioned the self-employed in response to a question from Deputy Ray Butler. The self-employed have a very favourable situation with regard to the State contributory pension. When one looks at all the actuarial calculations, self-employed people make a contribution of almost 5% and get the State contributory pension. The issue of public versus private has come up. Public servants have traditionally not got the State pension. People say it is worth "X" amount, but in fact they are losing out on the State pension. That is never brought into the picture when people make the point about how good public service pensions are. Of course, there has also been the pension levy.

What does auto-enrolment mean and entail? Are any EU member states operating a system which is basically a state pension which covers everybody? Is there one to which everybody contributes and everybody gets a pension? While it is a political decision, is there room for us to move towards a system in which everybody is covered by a State pension with no one having a pension that is too high or too low? I am not saying it has to be exactly the same but there should be a form of equality. Are there any proposals in that regard and would such a model fit in with the White Paper?