Mr. Gerard Scully:

As the Chairman said, the rules governing voluntary contributions in terms of when one can begin making them and who can make them can be simplified and extended to more categories. Anybody who wishes to do so should be able to make voluntary contributions. There is no justification for having somebody in the system but receiving less in the system than somebody else. For example, those in paid employment can make voluntary contributions but the self-employed cannot. We need to look at the system in its entirety and simplify the rules. The rules governing voluntary contributions need to be extended so that everybody who is paying PRSI contributions at some level, whether that entitles them to a State pension or not, should be allowed to make voluntary contributions in order to become eligible for the State pension. A self-employed person whose business folds may find himself or herself on the dole two or three years before retirement age and he or she cannot make voluntary contributions or get a State pension and may not have a private pension. He or she may not have been wise enough to pay into a private pension. Those people are left on the non-contributory pension after working all their lives, which is grossly unfair.