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

That is fine but I think Ms Thornton is missing the point I was making. The only pension that does something dramatic for the gender pay gap is the State pension. It is ruthless in what it does and it does it for the pay gap in general and for the gender pay gap. It rewards all workers equally in terms of cash. What I am afraid of, because I have been around this side of the shop a while, is that in time the system will use leverage to start depressing the State pension, which is the good one for tackling the gender pay gap and the income pay gap between those who had good employment, in favour of this system. We will then have three systems, namely, private pensions, this pension and the State pension, which is the one that is most ruthless in defending those on low incomes or the gender pay gap. Nobody can quantify that but what I do know is that a lot of times in my career we have been told a thing will not happen in the future or will not have those consequences but it has.