Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

I have to say I am quite encouraged by the discussion we are having here. It is very interesting to hear Deputy Doherty's views on it and I will certainly take them into account. I do not make decisions because of how the Deputy may respond to them or not. I have to try to make decisions based on what I think is the right thing to do overall. I have outlined that for equity reasons overall in the budget, I believed it was not a decision that should be made now. I know that when you consider other options in regard to this, it will come back to the age-related factors. I know that because this has been looked at for some time and I am familiar with how it operates. I equally know that with regard to saying we can apply the age-related factors to particular cohorts or groups of workers or particular levels within our public sector, we will not be able to do that. It will have to be done for everyone. This is an interesting discussion to have had and it will be useful to come back to this issue later on in the year, particularly when we do further consideration of this.

I will go back to the Deputy's point where he said we should consider the idea that - again, it was only an option - we would facilitate an opt-out from our public sector pension scheme for people who hit or are about to hit the standard fund threshold, which will be €2.8 million in a few years' time. That would cause real issues of equity with lots of other people where we ask them to continue to pay into their pension scheme - real, serious issues. Again, it is worth evaluating that when we are thinking about how this issue could be dealt with.