Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

A very serious issue is developing with regard to pensions and, as far as I understand the matter, the figures the Deputy has mentioned are correct. One solution is to ignore the problem and allow all the tax breaks to benefit the top 20% or 30% of earners, who are benefiting from them at present. Another solution is to hype the voluntary system, perhaps by turning tax breaks into cash breaks, to see whether it will attract more people thereto. The third system is to consider a more quasi-mandatory or mandatory system. By "quasi-mandatory", I mean a system in which people are enrolled automatically but can opt out.

I have decided to engage in a process with regard to the latter option because, as I said from the beginning, one needs to bring the country with one on an issue such as this. No Government would impose a mandatory pensions system without securing consensus in the political and financial systems. I am trying to build such consensus. We have largely done so and pensions have reached the top of the agenda in the national pay talks, the media and this House. The first priority question today, for example, concerned pensions and it is therefore obvious that the issue has reached the top of the agenda.

The next stage in the process is to combine all the research in a Green Paper and try to elicit from the parties opposite their views thereon. I saw a Fine Gael press release that opposed mandatory pensions and expressed a preference for the SSIA-type route. In calmer times, when we are not considering the matter in light of the forthcoming election, Deputy Stanton might revisit that statement. Being in favour of mandatory pensions probably does not represent a very popular election platform, but it will surely be popular in 20 or 30 years among the 500,000 women without pension coverage, about whom we have spoken many times in the House. At that stage, they will not care who wins the next election — all they will care about is whether we did the right thing.

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