Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for interrupting again. It appears to me, from the details published a number of weeks ago, that when a woman is not working, her pension payments are not being made by herself, by the State or by her employer, which is perpetuating the situation we have with regard to the current contributory State pension when women do not work for years. To date, and before the new model is brought in, we do not even give women carer credits to an extent that would allow them to reach a full contributory pension. Mr. Lawler highlighted that himself, insofar as while there has been an increase in the rate of pay for pensions in the past number of years, we still have only 50% of women getting a full pension. The new automatic enrolment scheme will do exactly the same with this private State-supported pension as we have done with the State contributory pension. Why are we perpetuating an issue we all recognise through a brand new Government policy?