Dr. Orlaigh Quinn:

I thank the members for their questions and will try to answer all of them. I will ask my colleagues to join in as well. Senator Power referred to the sense of fairness and the anger involved. Comments were also made about a lack of consultation. In 2007, we started looking at pension reform in the Green Paper. Since then there has been an enormous amount of consultation. I personally met over 500 people when we did consultation tours around the country. Some 340 groups gave us papers and presentations, and the retirement age was a significant part of that process. We have had a large number of consultations since then. I find it hard to accept therefore that we have not had a public debate on this issue. It has been taking place.

I accept that the changes came in very quickly, which is not desirable in terms of pensions. It is good to give a long lead-in for any pension changes. However, given the economic recession we faced and the need to achieve savings, a huge number of different areas were examined, and this was just one of them.

The issue of demographic factors and their future effect was also raised, but this is happening right now. Between 2008 and today we have had more than 100,000 additional pensioners on the social welfare books. Our costs have increased from €5.5 billion to €6.5 billion. It is not something that is going to happen in 2030 or 2050 - we are dealing with such growth every single year.

Senator Power asked a question about people who voluntarily choose to retire at 65. They will come under the same rules and conditions that apply to all our schemes. If one voluntarily leaves work there is a nine week period during which one would not qualify for a social welfare payment. If a person has to leave work as part of their contract, they immediately benefit. In the main, they would go on to a jobseeker's benefit, so the question of their assets would not arise because they would have sufficient stamps to qualify for that.