Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

I looked at that issue a lot when I was Minister for public expenditure and the answer is that we do not facilitate opt-outs or carve-outs. If you, in the operation of a public pension scheme, begin creating the option for people to opt out or for certain workers not to participate in it, either for part of their career or for a number of years, it creates all kinds of issues with equity and the funding of the scheme in the future. The Deputy is only asking us to consider this as an option, I should say. He is not saying we should do it but, from all the experience I have had with the operation of our existing public pension scheme, it is not something we should do.