Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Just out of curiosity, what percentage takes early retirement? The Minister said he is trying to predict who is going to retire or to apply to retire. Could there not be a yearly cap on that so that the predictions would be more accurate? Could a time limit be put on it whereby everybody has to submit his or her application by the end of October, for example, so there is no discrepancy in the figures? I am glad to hear the National Pensions Reserve Fund is being discussed. It would probably be prudent to put something in place there to start building that back up again. The Minister spoke about cost-neutral early retirement. For whom is it cost-neutral? Have any costings been done on the loss of experience from people? It might be cost-neutral for the employee at some stage but is there a cost in terms of the loss of experience that is hard to replace? Do we have to bring other expertise in to cover for people who leave with very significant experience?