Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Healy and the Chairman, I am nearly done and I thank them for their time. I want to go back to a point made by the Chairman on the level of taxation. This committee spent some time looking at where we are at regarding public spending. Reference was made to Mr. Seamus Coffey, who said that we are a lower tax economy and a lower spend economy, however the majority of that lower spend and lower tax is in social insurance as seen in pensions. Mr. Coffey said that when one actually strips out other European social spend, and when we look at the national accounts and strip out social insurance contributions including employers' PRSI, and we strip out the fact that Ireland has a really low State pension, which is paltry - a lot of other countries have a contribution-based pension - then according to Mr. Coffey actually our total spend on other public services and out total revenue raised are in and around the European average. I contacted Mr. Coffey and asked for the data on this and I am still waiting on a reply. That is, however, what he told the committee and it is my understanding that he knows this stuff quite well. If we assume that he is broadly correct - there may be technicalities - and if we assume that what he is saying is directionally correct, would the National Women's Council and Social Justice Ireland be in favour of moving in both places? Would they say that they want to see higher social insurance contributions of probably a mixture of individual contributions and employer contributions, and that we would move from a relatively flat-based pension support system to a contribution-based system? This would mean that people on higher incomes would end up with higher pensions so it is not a perfect choice. What is Dr. Healy's view on that?