Ms Teresa Kelly Oroz:

The gender issues are well flagged at this point. They were raised through the initial straw man consultation, but the issue around flexibility was not there because we would have seen flexibility coming through. We made proposals at the time in respect of the State incentive to say that there should be a credit mechanism that can go into it. We are also aware that the Pensions Council provided the Minister with a report in March of this year specifically on the pensions gender gap, and also flagged concerns through the auto enrolment scheme and remedies that can be done. As the Deputy correctly stated, it is taking a long time for the State pension changes to be implemented with a view to smoothing due to the recognition that careers for women in particular are not linear. It is a little surprising that we are now introducing a new pension scheme and enrolment by trying to implement something where we know we are going to have problems into the future. Even New Zealand, which has much more flexibility, already has a 15% pension gender gap operational. We know that if we do not allow flexibility from the beginning and if we do not deal with what happens in the context of maternity leave and unpaid leave, there will be a gap forthcoming.

The Deputy's next question was on the benefits relating to occupational pension schemes that we also want to see within the AE scheme. Under law, every occupational scheme must provide either access to additional voluntary contributions, AVCs, or a personal retirement savings account, PRSA, that allows additional AVCs. This allows a person to increase his or her contributions. We are putting in place schemes and trying to encourage savings, and yet we are blocking any additional savings that can come through as a result of the rigidity of the model. There are other things that we see through the defined contribution schemes. We are assuming that this will be a master trust and that the trustee provisions are there, but this is not clearly specified through the heads of the Bill either. There are things we would automatically see such as disclosures we would give to members and help we would give to members, for example, annual benefit statements that project forward and tell a person that if he or she continues saving at current rates, this is what will be expected at retirement and what the income will be. The statement will also indicate what the expected income will be if a person increases or reduces his or her their rate. At the moment, we do not see any of those types of disclosures being highlighted or completed in alignment with what we would see in the context of normal occupational schemes.