Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I am not particularly aware of the specific case, but given that the Deputy has raised it, I will make a point of studying it. The Deputy might be aware that I am examining the area of non-contributory policy in any case. As I said to the committee last week, the number of people on non-contributory pensions is reducing each year and obviously those on contributory pensions is increasing correspondingly or even faster. Up to half those on non-contributory pensions are on partial pensions. Enormous effort is going into means testing these and making changes as to the proportion of pension received at every stage. This area needs to be examined and in that context we can review this issue.

There is an essential principle in the question asked by the Deputy. As the law stands the existing limits must be applied. If we subsequently discover that the accounts of a deceased person reveal something different from what we had been led to believe five or ten years earlier, it cannot be ignored under the present law. As I have said many times, I am very keen to examine the operation of non-contributory pensions as those on such pensions end up worse off than contributory pensioners. While contributory pensioners must contribute to the fund, there is no means test and they can earn what they wish. They are entitled to have other pensions. Whereas the dwindling brigade of non-contributory pensioners find that we means test very severely and although in the budget I increased the amount they can earn, they do not have the facility to earn additional funds. I have commenced the process of examining that area in recent weeks. Regarding this claw-back, we would be happy to examine any proposals on how to ring-fence such savings and confirm and verify them. It would be extremely difficult and I have no such proposals at present.

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