Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentation and for the enormous amount of work that went into the development of this document. I very much agree with the values underpinning it - the idea, as Ms Burke set out, that having an ageing population who are living longer is not a bad thing, but providing for that into the future must be underpinned by values of social solidarity and intergenerational solidarity. I strongly agree with the value system that underpins this piece of work.

I have some broad questions and some more specific questions. I will begin with the broadest question and this may or may not be useful. A certain formulation of words occurs several times in the document and it was repeated this morning about the terms of reference being quite narrow or focused, whichever way we want to put it. The commission noted that the scope of its work was positioned within a set of parameters and decisions already made by the Government. A particular formulation of words occurs a few times in the document. It struck me that it was repeated. Should I read into that that the members of the commission would have liked a broader frame of reference? This may require them to unpick their entire document and so it may not be worth looking at. Was there something they would have liked to address in their body of work that they did not have the opportunity to address, given their terms of reference? That is a very broad question.

The second slightly less broad question is about universal pensions. There is one line, saying we are not doing that.

I would like to have that investigated in more detail.

On the specifics did the modelling examining the various packages in respect of the funding contributions concerned consider issues such as income smoothing? Is that already built into that modelling? Regarding the total contributions approach, were the figures outlined to us earlier predicated on the income smoothing and total contributions approach being in place?

The Chair can cut me off if I hit my limit on questions, but on that income smoothing aspect as well, I had a look back over the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025. Two elements of that are being considered, but do the witnesses have an opinion regarding whether we should have the third element as well, and a triple lock? It might be concerned with the concept of the minimal essential standards of living, MESL. Should that be in there as well?

Mention was made in the report as well of using "non-labour revenue sources to help fund the State Pensions system". Was that captured in the information presented to us regarding base broadening? Is that what we are talking about in respect of PRSI contributions being paid elsewhere or being payable on optional pensions, or is there something else captured that I am not understanding?