Mr. Ciarán Lawler:

The State pension contributory payments, which are the vast majority of pension payments from the Department, are funded through the Social Insurance Fund. When that fund is in surplus, State pension contributory payments are made from that surplus, and when it is not in surplus or when it is in deficit, it is subvented by the Exchequer. For the vast majority of its life, in fact, it has been in deficit. We have had periods where we have built up fairly large surpluses of more than €3 billion and €4 billion, but when we hit an economic crash such as we had or have the experience of Covid, it can be exhausted very quickly. That is how it operates.