Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will starting with the Deputy's first question concerning administration. There are two key reasons for the increase in the administration subhead. First, we have engaged in a detailed staff education and training programme whereby the Department now has a contract, or a partnership, with the National College of Ireland to upskill and educate our staff. This is for many reasons. Obviously, we want staff to do more and do things better. We also want to give them opportunities for promotion and that has a cost to it. The JobPath contract falls into this subheading as well. As the Deputy will be aware, the main cost of this is when people get jobs that pay more than 30 hours per week and they sustain it for more than 13 weeks. That is when the payments to JobPath start to kick in. I think 20,000-odd people now have gone through that programme and managed to sustain a full-time job for more than three months. That is when the payments kick in.

Regarding the contributory pension, we can provide a breakdown as to where the increases are for the Deputy. Last year, the number of people entitled to a State contributory pension increased by 4.6%, whereas the number entitled to a non-contributory pension fell by 0.5%, which is something the Deputy identified. This reflects demographics. There are more and more people now retiring who have a history of paying into the PRSI system and are therefore entitled to a contributory pension. Those who are passing away are obviously much older and would often be people who did not pay into the PRSI system and only received a pension on a means-tested basis.

Regarding the rate increase, this cost 1.8% in respect of contributory pensions and 2.1% in respect of non-contributory pensions. There are other factors at play, as I mentioned earlier. The payday has an effect as well because there are a number of different paydays in any given year. We can give the Deputy an exact breakdown and if he wants it in numbers, it is on page 7 of our brief. The allocation for the State pension contributory was €4.844 billion, which was an increase of €182 million on the outturn. Of this, €210 million was due to an increase in pension recipient numbers. The cost of the rate increase was €81 million, but this was offset by things like the Christmas bonus, the number of paydays and a number of other factors. I should point out that the figures we use in our brief include the Christmas bonus for 2016 but do not assume there will be a Christmas bonus in 2017 - although I do assume there will be a Christmas bonus in 2017; I am just not permitted to put it into the accounts, barring a major recession.

Regarding the figures on the cost of the changes made in 2015, the Deputy refers to the two reforms brought in by the former Minister, Deputy Burton, in 2012, namely, a change from five years' contributions to ten and the averaging system. If we were to reverse that, it would cost €60 million in 2018, and if we were to backdate it, it would cost €200 million. Because the changes work into the future, it would cost €10 million more every year. Therefore, it would cost €60 million next year, €70 million in 2019, €80 million in 2020 and so on.