Mr. Ciarán Lawler:

To go back, the rate of pension has tracked approximately 34% of average earnings for several years. The result of that seems to have been that, as the Deputy stated, when one looks at statistics on income and living conditions, such as those in the context of the minimum essential standards of living, for example, pensioner rates of poverty tend to be lower, on average, than other groups in society. The first thing that shows is that some level of indexation or benchmarking, even if it is informal rather than formal, seems to work in maintaining living standards. If one looks internationally, the focus has been on pensions. We have a commitment to look at a benchmarking and indexation approach for working-age payments. That is in the roadmap for social inclusion and it is what we will be doing in the coming period.