Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

As the Comptroller and Auditor General, in his opening statement pointed out, we will be moving this year for the first time back into a surplus in the Social Insurance Fund and I hope that continues to be healthy over the short-to-medium term.

The long-term viability of the Social Insurance Fund is entirely dependent on the demands that are made of the fund. There is an actuarial review about to be commenced, I think, at the end of this year. At the begin of 2017, we are required to commence it. Previous actuarial reviews would have highlighted a difficulty, because of the demographic profile, the ageing population, the demands from pensions, in particular, on the State pension, that if there were not changes made to either entitlement or the provisioning of the fund, we would have problems into the future. In the longer term, that would be a difficulty, and I would not expect the next actuarial review to make findings that are too much different from that.

There have been steps taken over the past number of years, particularly in the context of pension entitlements. The age at which somebody is entitled to old age pension has been increased. There is a programme of further increase in 2021 and 2028 which was signalled many years ago. The eligibility conditions to allow one access State pension have also been changed. All of those are with a view to tightening up on the entitlement side. The provisioning is another side, which is the rates at which workers pay PRSI. The viability of the fund and its ability to operate in the longer term is really a question of the balance between the two, the demand and supply aspect.

In terms of Brexit, the Government will be part of the European response. At present, the UK remains a member of the EU and all of the existing entitlements continue to be in place. The Department is participating in all of the different working groups at Government level with a view to inputting and trying to assess what the possible implications of Brexit might be, but all of that will dependent on what is negotiated.