Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

The social insurance fund derives its income mainly from pay-related social insurance contributions from both employers and employees. It provides insured contributors with both long-term pension benefits and short-term benefits such as unemployment and disability payments.

The cumulative surplus in the social insurance fund since 2002 was €1.273 billion in 2002, €1.529 billion in 2003, €1.906 billion in 2004, €2.4 billion in 2005 and, provisionally, €3.070 billion in 2007. This increasing cumulative surplus in the fund is the continuation of a trend which commenced in 1997 when a surplus arose for the first time since the fund was established in 1953.

In the previous 44 years, there was a shortfall between the amount of income received into the fund and the amount of expenditure paid out of it. This was made up by an Exchequer subvention in each year, as provided for under the Social Welfare Acts.

The Acts also provide for the investment of the amount of the surplus arising in the fund. The investment account of the fund is managed by the National Treasury Management Agency, subject to guidelines issued by the Minister for Finance. The total amount of interest received on investment since the fund came into surplus in 1997 is €329 million.

See this speech in context