Mr. Michael Taft:

To be honest, I do not know. It might be worth investigating why we have such a high employment rate for those over the age of 65. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, may be of assistance on this. I suspect part of it might be down to older farmers continuing to work.

We will seek the assistance of the Central Statistics Office to identify where that high rate is coming from. The Chair referred to the 0.7%. The commission and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council refer to it. We do not know that there will be savings of 0.7% as the Department of Social Protection suggests. It is potentially a figure that is up to two thirds lower. People say that we need to bring in the pension age increase to complement the soft initiatives. You do not need the soft initiatives when you force people to work to the age of 67 or 68 to get their pension. They will have to continue working and will continue to make pension contributions. The hard option means that we do not need many of the soft options.