Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a comment on this. It is estimated the Social Insurance Fund will be back in surplus this year. In the debate on pensions we have to take several things into account. No doubt the Commission on Pensions report was raised. The issue is a financial one. We already put a lot of Exchequer funds into welfare and quite rightly. The idea that straight Exchequer funds and non-PRSI funds would not go into welfare is unthinkable. The whole system would collapse tomorrow morning if that happened.

Auto-enrolment is due to be introduced. Will this be taken out of the Social Insurance Fund or will it be Exchequer funding? I keep asking questions but nobody seems to want to know. This has a huge bearing on the choices we will make about putting money into caring for the elderly. Do we put it in a private scheme where the biggest contribution will go to those who are better off or do we put it into keeping the pension age as it is? Can we get some sense of this? I understand one third of the money for auto-enrolment is to come from the Exchequer. Will this come from the Social Insurance Fund or Exchequer funding? How much is it likely to be? We know how much it will cost per annum to keep the pension age at 66. I have asked parliamentary questions and we do not seem to get any answer on an estimate of how much auto-enrolment will cost in various scenarios. The Department has this information.