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

I have a technical point to make. There is concern because the 2020 solution provides for a 40-year pension life and Mr. Duggan is correct that this is not necessarily the same as the post-2020 total contribution scheme. He then suggested people make recommendations but the problem with that is that we are blind when we make them. Age Action said somebody with 20 years' payments in the new scheme would have a higher average on the current scheme than the 2040 scheme. The problem is that we do not know the cost of any of the moves. If we decided that total contributions should be a 30-year scheme, we have no means of determining whether that will increase the total budget by 10%, 20% or 50%. We can objectively look at the issues as they arise but it is difficult to know what the cost of implementation might be.

If the Department introduced the 2012, 40-year, total contribution scheme across the board today, what would it cost? That is the challenge for those who wish to make recommendations. We are all concerned about the fact that 20 years is long and that somebody who has only paid in 20 out of 40 years will be on a half pension. As a committee and as individuals trying to make recommendations, it is problematic because we do not have a calculation to base them on.