Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ryan asked about the Social Insurance Fund, which is built on people's contributions being sufficient to pay for their needs when they retire, particularly in relation to the State retirement pension, the payments made to widows and maternity benefit. This will also apply to paternity leave in the future. They are the principal payments out of the Social Insurance Fund. It is extremely important for the future stability of the fund, which is going to be there for people, that we bring it back into balance and eliminate the deficit. I have given some figures in respect of carers. Every year, we put aside an additional amount of approximately €200 million to cater for the increase in the number of people qualifying for payments like retirement payments, in particular, and the payments made to widows. This means we can say to such people with assurance that the deficit in the fund, which was just under €2.8 billion, has now been reduced to some €180 million. I anticipate on the basis of current expectations that when we get the final figure for December, it will be much lower than that. Obviously, as I said earlier, some of that is being used for the Christmas bonus. The social insurance forecast for next year is extremely good. There are challenges ahead as the number of people of pension age increases and those who come into retirement happily live a lot longer. Obviously, that is something we will need to address over the years ahead. To that end, I have been proposing the supplementary pension for people in work and I am anxious to make provision for that.