Dr. Seán Healy:

I am going to have to leave after this question as I am already 25 minutes late for a meeting with another very serious body. I wish to be very clear on this. Our proposal has been that there should be two separate initiatives. One is the introduction of a universal State pension along the lines that we have spoken about, put the cost of it down and go for that. On the other side we have also proposed that the State create its own pension fund into which any worker could put money throughout their lives that would be managed by NTMA or such a body with a similar level of competence, and that would basically be able to outperform, we would think, market-driven stuff where lots of profits must be taken from the funds. In the context of our proposal, it would simply be the State that was supporting it. This is probably the best way to do it because the critically important thing for us is that with the changing world into which we face, people are going to have much more uneven engagement with the world of employment throughout their lives. The idea of a permanent job for life, in the same place and paying a family wage is long gone. The new world of work would be much better served by universal pension on one side, basic income in the normal working years and pension contributions if people want to top up by putting in whatever they like and have the State run the fund. We could leave the pensions funds there that are currently there but the proposal would be that the State would also provide one that was reliable and not likely to take half of the fund or people losing huge chunks of their pension funds simply because the people who are running the funds are taking a huge amount of the money - which has been the experience of people over the years.