Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will again make the point I made at the outset. I do not, at the moment, get to legislate on anything else that is happening in the pensions industry. We are getting an opportunity to look at legislation to do with what will become a substantial part of our pension provision State-wide. I strongly feel that if we are looking at convergence, we should converge upwards and not downwards. We should not use an argument to say that it does not apply elsewhere and, therefore, we should not apply it here. It would be like saying we will not do away with corporal punishment at primary because they are still beating fellas in secondary school. I do not think I would live with that either.

I understand they are difficult, and I knew they were going to be the more difficult amendments to make the argument for when I submitted them. As I said, we should be ambitious. On amendment No. 19, I understand the Minister's rationale but by God we better get to a place where we can describe the common good and shared well-being on a spreadsheet because otherwise, our goose is cooked. Similarly, we should try to ratchet up, in terms of the intentions that we want for pension provision and investments all across our economy, State and society, rather than accepting a status quo and saying we are going to bring ourselves into that.