Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. They go straight onto it.

The Deputy again mentioned the 65-year-olds. As I said to Deputy Kerrane, we will explore designing a scheme to modify the current benefit payment for 65-year-olds to provide a benefit payment for people who, following a long working life of 40 years or more, are not in a position to remain working in their early 60s. We are looking at how we can do something there.

The actuarial review of the Social Insurance Fund is due to be finalised in the coming weeks and once completed this statutory review will be brought to Government prior to its publication before the end of March at the very latest. Once the actuarial review is published, the Department of Social Protection will prepare a proposal on a roadmap for PRSI increases, including options on the rates and the timing of any increases. We will get a full actuarial review and we will get an outlook of what is coming down the road. I know the Pensions Commission recommended doing something for the next 30 years. I did not want to do that because things change. The Social Insurance Fund is in a much healthier position than we thought it would be. Projections in 2017 suggested it would be in serious deficit today. That is not the case and there is more than €2 billion in the Social Insurance Fund at the moment. That is thanks to a very strong labour market and despite the money that was paid out on the pandemic unemployment payment. I will have a full report at the end of March. At that stage, we can consider what increases we need to apply. It can be much smaller and incremental. We can do it in such a way that we are informed by real-time data. We will lay out a plan for the next ten years with reviews at five-year intervals.