Ms Teresa Kelly Oroz:

On the figure of €20,000, we had a look at that as well. I think there was an Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, report that identified the split to say that it would obviously impact more women than it would men. There is a question on affordability when you go under that figure and the replacement value of that. Our view was that it probably should be reduced - the entry point of €20,000 is higher than where a lot of international standards have the entry point - to about €17,000 to allow that flexibility come through. The other issue specific to women is part-time employment. Women are more likely to have a number of part-time employments and it is a question of how one tracks those together to make sure that if they bridge the €20,000 limit, they are caught by auto-enrolment.

On flexible contributions, it goes back all the way to advice. Realistically, we know that women are far more likely to have breaks in cover and have unpaid breaks in cover. For anyone who is joining a pension scheme and for auto-enrolment in a pension scheme, you should advise younger men and younger women slightly differently because if they can, they should try to increase their contributions early. Again, the problem with when you take maternity leave is its compounding effect. Taking time out in your 20s and 30s has a much bigger impact on your pension than when you do it later in life.

The heads of the Bill are entirely silent on what happens during maternity leave. Some employers will top up maternity leave and if they do that, the pension contributions flow. If they do not top up maternity leave then there seems to be nothing coming through from the employer. On a credit scheme, again the heads of the Bill are silent on what happens to the State contribution in that scenario but in the UK, in cases where you avail of unpaid leave, they will add a credit to your pension scheme on occupational schemes and on auto-enrolment but we do not do that here at the moment.

Last, there is the employee contribution and, again, the heads of the Bill are totally silent. We know there will be gaps because women will take times off leave. We know they will not be able to increase their contributions based on the current model in advance, which they would have been able to do with the straw man, to smooth that out into the future. We know that when women return, they do not have the capability to either put lump sums in or increase their contribution, or for their employer to increase the contribution. We in Irish Life looked at our own pension scheme.

We realised we had a gap, so what we do as an employer when women return from maternity leave is to increase our employer contribution. This is to recognise that when, coming back from maternity leave, the employee may not have money because it is quite costly. Therefore, we increase our employer contribution for a year to smooth out that gap and to do so as quickly as possible to avoid the compounding effect. None of that is possible under the current model with auto-enrolment because there is such a rigidity to the scheme at present.