John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise for my delay. I tried to earwig on some of the contributions.

One of the things that struck me, and perhaps will have struck a lot of people, is the range of commissions, initiatives, groups, reviews, reforms and frameworks that have been put in place over the past 30 years, and even the raft of things that have happened in the last number of years. Some people are terribly well provided for, as the finance officials will know. There are even some semi-State public employees, and I can think of one company in particular, who are regarded as having the Rolls-Royce of pensions. Curiously, that group is making representations to some politicians at the moment about indexation of pensions.

The witnesses may already have covered my question, and if so I ask that they would please forgive my ignorance about it. Because of inflation in the last little while, and due to Covid dampening down so much consumer activity, I have been receiving representations from constituents around issues such as the home adaptation grant, and finding that the amounts available for them have not kept pace with the increased costs of construction. Indexation does not just apply to pensions. It clearly comes into stark relief at particular times.

I have previously raised the theme of future-proofing budgets in the Oireachtas Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight. In the last two years we have begun to equality-proof budgets, so we should also embark on future-proofing budgets, if such a thing is possible, to ensure that spending now does not involve creating an increased burden on generations to come. In the context of indexation, could any of the witnesses speak to that? If we were to future-proof things, where do they see this given the demographics? We hear about the ratio of pensioners to those who are actively involved in participating in the labour market. This ratio will narrow in the coming years and more people will be dependent. Clearly, indexation has implications for that. Perhaps some of the witnesses could speak to that piece, if it has not already been covered. It has been covered, I will get it back in the transcript.