John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make the following comment for Mr. Moran's information and that of the committee, and to follow on from a point made by Deputy O'Dea about total contributions. If a person worked 52 weeks a year for 40 years, he or she would have made about 2,000 contributions. Recently I asked the Department for a breakdown on how many people in receipt of a pension had made total payments of 1,800 contributions, 1,500 contributions and so forth. It emerged that the Department did not have the data to hand. People are concerned that we cannot design a proper system because, without that data, the bands in a new system might be just as problematic as the banks in the current system. In my view, very few people will have worked 40 years uninterrupted or have made contributions, availed of credits or whatever for 40 years. It is important that the design of the system reflects reality. We must not introduce a new system that might be more equitable but gives people much less. It is tricky to gather the appropriate information. I am disappointed that some of the big figures are unavailable. If they were, one could commence analysing how a new system might look like.