Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to check one or two things. I asked some of these questions at the briefing and I think I have it right but I want to double-check. Hereafter, when the budget is announced, there will be two primary sets of figures for the pension, namely, a rate for the 66-year-olds; and three different rates for the 67, 68 and 69-year-olds. Each of those people will follow a trajectory that would have been set from the point at which they deferred. That has all kinds of knock-on effects and somebody who comes into the system a year later starts on a different rate or is on a different trajectory, so it is all related. The level of the 5% increases are based on actuarial figures and that is reviewed every five years.

Perhaps I misunderstand how this works, so I hope to be reassured, but I have a slight concern that this is a fair bit of time, were there to be a rate of inflation like we had in 2022 or beyond that, as we have had in some countries. If something radical happens in the course of a five-year period where the actuarial factors are not being reviewed, could that lead to a situation where the value of the deferral and the percentage increases is lost against either inflation or the base rate? That probably is the case but I ask the Minister to outline how.