Ms Josephine Feehily:

To begin with the Deputy's broad question, we debated the point he is raising at some length at the beginning of our work. We formed the view that if there was something that we felt strongly enough about, then we would not constrain ourselves in that regard. For example, we made a recommendation concerning a register of family carers, an aspect that was outside of our focus, and we also made a recommendation regarding the provision of guidance to ensure that older workers might be prepared. In the end, however, we decided, given the short timeframe we had, that our work was mainly addressed to the audience. That is why it is repeated.

I said to the Minister about six months after we started our work that if I had thought of it at the start, we should probably have been called the commission on State pensions, because the audience, the submitters and the commentariat were giving us jobs that we did not have. Therefore, this facet of our work was more addressed to the audience to make it clear that the reason we stayed in the areas where we stayed was a function of our terms of reference. We did not have a function in respect of private pensions, and neither did we have one regarding the tax system. Many of the submissions and much of the material addressed to us raised those hares. The main reason this point is repeated, then, is because we were probably feeling that much of the audience did not quite get how focused and specific were our terms of reference. That was the reason. We debated this point, and we were content that a job of work needed to be done and that was a useful contribution we could make. Therefore, we came up with this language we used about "fixing the system within [...] the system".

Moving onto the matter of universal pensions, a longer text in the full report deals with this aspect. I just cannot find the relevant reference now. What we state there, however, is that aspect is outside of our terms of reference, because those are based on a contributions system and a universal pension does not have that idea. The concept, therefore, was outside the scope of our terms of reference, but we did examine it. We found that not only was it out of scope, but we also decided that it was placed somewhere else in the form of a basic income pilot. We arrived at that conclusion because, in the context of a basic income pilot, a pension is clearly a version of basic income.

In addition, inherent in the idea of a universal basic income, whether for pensions specifically or for everyone, is the involvement of the tax system. That was definitely out of scope, and was also placed somewhere else. In the end, therefore, it was not a case of us having decided to recommend against the concept, we just did not recommend it on those grounds. I hope that is okay by way of an answer. We took that approach particularly because of the contribution element. Once our job was grounded in the Social Insurance Fund and contributions, then the dynamic of a universal basic income would have been a different job, as it were.

Regarding the information we presented earlier, I am certain that the total contribution approach, TCA, change is included. Ms Burke will be able to help me to clarify whether the income aspect is addressed in that information as well.