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

I have €100. I want to put money into my pension pot through the auto-enrolment scheme. Before I do that, I am on the marginal rate of tax so €40 is taken away. To put it another way, to put €100 into my pension pot, I have to have €130 or €140. If I say I want to put €100 aside, the taxman will call a halt and demand €40 of that. Now I have only €60 left. I put that €60 in and get a kickback of one quarter of that amount, which is €15. If I add that €15 to the €60, I get a total of €75. My neighbour might be able to put €100 into a pot under the current regime. Both of us take €100 in cash out of our wallets, rather than doing it all in paper transactions. One winds up with €75 in the pot and the other winds up with €100 in the pot. I think I am correct.