Mr. Justin Moran:

I do not wish to prolong the meeting but I will make one point on that issue. The lady who launched the Age Action report on the 2012 cuts was from Sligo. She had been due to retire and had found out what her contributions were going to be. Her employer then asked her to stay on for an additional year because of a staff shortage in her department. If she had retired when she had planned to do so, she would have had almost a full State pension. She did not know the 2012 changes were going to be implemented and she liked where she was working so she continued doing so for an additional year. When she retired, she found that her pension income had dropped. Her decision to work for an extra year will cost her, possibly for the rest of her life.