Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I did not say they will be ring-fenced because when we start ring-fencing funding for one group of people, then we are always faced with demands to ring-fence funding for other groups of people. The way in which we try to deal with the Deputy's point, which is an important one, is through the ELS funding that is made available to different Departments and we have a forecast for what that would be for a few years in advance. We try to deal with it that way. There is brilliant work done by the Department of Finance in setting up the two different funds. One of the funds that has been set up is exactly to deal with the impact of demographics and particularly when we get into the 2030s and 2040s. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, will explain it better than I can. They are setting up a fund and the return from that fund in the years ahead will be used to deal with demographic costs we will have at that point. I believe that is an essential thing to do. In the absence of that, the people doing budgets in the 2030s and 2040s would not have money for new policy measures and would barely have the money to stand still. This is why putting money into these funds, while it is a difficult and complex argument to make, is essential for the long-term future of this country.