Chairman:

I thank the delegates. I will allow members to speak on any or all of the issues which have been raised. Some of them have especially strong interests. I should point out that the matter of child protection is not within the remit of this committee. There is a Department and a Minister with responsibility for children, but that does not preclude colleagues who have an interest in the area from commenting on it, but it is not particular to this committee. I will begin and colleagues who wish to contribute may then do so.

In his opening remarks Mr. Solomon raised the matter of pensions. Ireland is no different from many other countries. While we have a system that operates, it is not without its challenges.

In fact, the State pension operates in two parts, namely, contributory and non-contributory. People pay into a Social Insurance Fund that funds the contributory State pension, while the non-contributory State pension is means-tested. We are an aging population and people are living longer. Without an increase in the annual pension and just to accommodate new pensioners, the additional funding required on a year-by-year basis is €200 million per annum.

In relation to the contributory pension, for which workers pay during their working lives, the system at present is under scrutiny, with a view to introducing a new type of system. The reason is that it is based on an average contribution over a person's working life rather than the person's total contributions. The averaging system has some anomalies in it, and particular groups of people have been dealt with unfairly because their annual average is not high enough. For a pension system to work effectively for those who contribute to it, it is important we have a system of credits that acknowledges periods of time when people cannot work for whatever reason, whether to rear a family or care for somebody. Our national Budget Statement was made a couple of weeks ago, and the issue of the contributory pension and annual averaging has received considerable debate. The Government is committed to changing it over the course of a number of years. This committee will scrutinise and evaluate its proposals as they become available. I do not want to take up the whole meeting and I have colleagues here. Deputy Carey is a member of the Government party and I will afford him the opportunity to speak first.