Ms Josephine Feehily:

I thank the Deputy. I will invite Ms Burke to answer the Deputy's second point in a moment. The Deputy asked a key question about the palatability of the age recommendation. We have included a couple of things which we think might help. The more transparency there is about the nature of the funding problem, the better the chance of creating an understanding across the community that this is not just a political whim or something that is being done for fun or to annoy people but is an important part of having a pension system that has certainty. The comfort of certainty, as you get older, is enormously important. We are strongly suggesting that in the lead-up to any new changes, whether they are recommended by the commission or not, more public debate take place about the underpinnings of, and the rationale for, any such decision.

In the debate that took place about the age increase at the beginning of 2020, there was a lot of focus on what I am calling the gap between 65 and 66. Many people were concerned. There are recommendations in our report that would address the gap on the employment side. There were some people who were content to stay at work but could not do so. We have recommended addressing the gap. The Government has addressed the gap with a retirement benefit for the age of 65 to 66. The gap has been addressed, or would be addressed, if our recommendation was implemented and attached to that to a fair degree. At least one of the debating points would be addressed.

We also recommended a lot of communication and the issuance to workers of statements to allow for a lot of notice. We are not recommending that the age increase begin until 2028, so there is lots of time. The statements to workers would tell them their specific situation, pension age and contribution record. It would set those out that information and explain it in good time. That should be done not only once but more than once. We recommend better communication to help understanding.

We felt that by moving a quarter at a time, we were reducing the sense of loss. Some people felt they were losing a year, relative to their predecessors the previous year. By doing it slowly and more gradually, although people still "lose", they are losing a lesser amount relative to their colleagues who retired the preceding year or the year before that. As part of the question of addressing the gap, we recommended the option to provide a pension for people with very long records at 65.

We felt we were contributing to enabling a rounder debate in the future.

At the committee's meeting last week, which I reviewed in recent days, one of the members said there are no easy decisions in this and we agree. There is only a question of which hard decisions will be made. The points I have made are about contributing to a rounder discussion and to having some answers to a discussion around the age point. The 65 age gap has been partially addressed and would be further addressed if people who wanted to stay at work could do so. We need to have much better and earlier person-specific communications. We must tell people that their pension age will be, for example, 67 and three quarters or 66 and we will shorten the sense of loss involved by doing it much more gradually and more slowly. Those were our considerations on how we might help that debate to be rounder the next time.

Ms Burke might be able to help with the question on fertility and migration.