Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will put it another way. There would be an average cost for everyone that goes into pension payment with regard to supplementary benefits. When the submission is made to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, up to now the Department of Social Protection knew exactly how many people would reach the threshold of pension age in the next 12 months. There would be an average in the cost of that payment to those persons. The Department would also have an average cost of the supplementary benefits. Could we get the figures for the average cost and the potential savings for one pensioner deferring, over one or 100 or 1,000 people? At least it would give us some indication of the figures we are talking about here, taking into account that it is very hard to know what the uptake will be.