Mr. Liam Berney:

My colleagues have touched on all the points I wanted to make. As my colleagues from Family Carers Ireland said earlier, if we were designing the system for the State pension today we would not start from where we are now. We would have a different system. In light of the commission's report, one of the issues that it is important for people to understand, or for the committee to reflect on, is that there is a strong sense of solidarity among younger people for the continuation of the State pension. As Mr. Taft said, in the poll published in one of the national newspapers last Sunday there was strong support among young people for the State pension and for not increasing the pension age.

It is important that we use this opportunity of examining reform to make a clear connection and give young workers who are beginning to pay into the State pension system some assurance that their contributions will result in them being able to get a State pension when, as Deputy Ó Cuív said, they come to the age they are entitled to receive it. This level of certainty has to be implicit in our State system. To have constant uncertainty about when people might receive the pension diminishes support for social solidarity. Certainly in the redesign of the system and whatever reform is undertaken following the commission's report, a crucial pillar in the design of the new system will be providing it for as long as we can.