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

I absolutely agree on the pension levy. If there are long-term schemes and people are making investment decisions or life decisions based on a policy, then changing it willy-nilly without warning would be bad. The pension levy is an example. Changing the rules on the State pension with regard to people without full contributions and reducing the rates was another. People had made decisions on making or not making voluntary contributions on the basis of the system that was there. Suddenly they found it changed. I agree this totally undermines confidence. There was one case with regard to the PRSI system of pension and another case with regard to private pensions. The point is well made.

I accept there is an extra administrative burden in some of the new legislation. Some is only for big companies. For example, there is a size restriction with regard to the gender pay gap. Measures with a reporting requirement take more work and are more complex. I used to have ultimate responsibility for payroll, and I set up a payroll system in the little business I worked in, when we had to do everything manually with a calculator. I am a little bit surprised, given modern computerisation, that IBEC feels there would be a significant administrative burden. It all depends on the software package but normally once the systems are set up they make the calculations themselves and there is not too much of a burden. Nowadays we can make all sorts of electronic transfers. In recent years I had the experience of employing somebody for a month and having to set up as an employer in a micro micro-business, as normally staff are paid directly by the Oireachtas and we have no responsibility. I found that dealing with Revenue now is very easy because the money is taken at the end of the month and the computer does the calculation. I see that other elements of change have an administrative burden but I wonder why IBEC thinks this would have a big administrative burden.