Mr. Robert Nicholson:

On tax relief, in any system which changes from a purely voluntary system to a mandatory element, again, a position would need to be taken on the financial incentives which would underpin it, particularly in the case of an auto-enrolment system where if incentives are not correct, people will opt out. The exempt tax system at marginal rates of relief would need to be considered and, again, a position taken on whether it reflects the policy goals a new system is trying to achieve. I would not take a position on that one way or the other without more information.

It also needs to be pointed out that the marginal rate of tax relief kicks in relatively early at €32,800. Those individuals would be core constituents of both the current and future retirement savings systems. Again, negative impacts of any change will need to be examined.

The supplementary pension coverage for women is 46.2%, as per data from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, while it is 47.2% for men. The coverage rates are quite similar. Again, because of lower hours, part-time work, lower wages and so forth, the outcomes from those pensions are significantly lower for women than they are for men. The issue of adequacy needs to be looked at. The gender pensions gap in the 2013 EU report on this area showed a 39% difference in supplementary pensions income for women compared to men. CSO data indicates that, on average, 9% of income of women in retirement comes from occupational pensions as opposed to 23% for men. There are different ways to look at the figures but certainly there is a gender gap. It is not lessened by employment-related pension schemes as it stands.

As Mr. Tim Duggan stated, current pensions income typically reflects social norms of yesterday. The labour market participation rate of women has gone up 20 percentage points in the past 20 years. Some of those impacts will be reduced but it remains an issue.

The issue with the mandatory retirement age and longer working goes back to the European report on pension adequacy. The question is what is one trying to achieve by how long someone stays in retirement. To a large extent, it is about intergenerational fairness. The period that individuals contribute to a pensions system and benefit from it should stay somewhat consistent across the generations. How does one get that right? That is a question for another day but that is what underpins the increase in age for the State pension.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform report on fuller working lives covered several areas but attached a report in 2013 around various suggested measures which would support longer working. That included financial incentives such as tax and PRSI, changes to employers’ practices, how to reform the labour market, training and upskilling and so on. These would cover to a large extent international best practice in this area.