Dr. Micheál Collins:

I will come in briefly on all that if I may. I have two things to say. With any of these tax expenditure measures, whether pensions, film reliefs, the corporate changes or whatever else, transition is always important. There is always a need to facilitate and allow a transition as you move from one system to another. In fairness to the Revenue Commissioners and others, we in Ireland tend to be quite good at doing that, and that is the right way to proceed.

As for pensions specifically, this comes back to a point Deputy Canney raised earlier, which was the frustration of not having up-to-date figures and information. I think this would be a much easier conversation for all of us if we were able to see, and if the Revenue Commissioners were able to provide, a more detailed breakdown of how this tax expenditure is distributed. In and of itself, the structure is such that there are very substantial benefits arising to very small groups of individuals with very large pensions. That is why it is very important we do not just remove the tax-free lump sum. The vast majority of the people Deputy Durkan has mentioned and those he and his colleagues have met in their careers will be looking at lump sums much smaller than €200,000. However, those lump sums will of course be very important to their standard of living and to their well-being, and many of those people will expect the lump sums to be an important part of their lives and living standards. It is about protecting that and thinking about how we distribute these State resources fairly rather than undermining the well-being of the vast majority of people, which is not what it is intended to do.