Ms Eilís Ní Chaithnía:

In terms of the pension issue not being in the public light, the council agrees that despite much work on the matter over the years the issue has not been covered widely. We have been unable to secure media coverage in a large way although the situation is changing. Pensions have changed in the last budget. Although the changes that we hoped for were not made, the issue of pensions was discussed much more as it was at the national economic dialogue.

In recent weeks we were happy to receive a small sum of money from the Community Foundation for Ireland for an outreach programme that will span the country. We will primarily deal with women over the age of 65 to increase their knowledge of pensions. While they of course have their own personal experience of the disadvantages of the pension system, we will start to increase their knowledge of pensions by providing training, starting in Letterkenny and Killarney. We will increase the knowledge of these women and thus their capacity to lobby individually. We will start to engage them in our own lobbying activities. We hope that they will start to work at constituency level with their own representatives and local media to get this pension issue in the public eye. We, as an organisation, agree with the Deputy that this issue needs greater highlighting. Did the Deputy have a second question?