Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

This is like trying to square a circle. If the Minister is trying to maintain the surplus under which the social insurance fund operates, that is a very laudable objective. However, the proposal is to decrease the amount of money going into the fund by €645 million per year based on current projections. How can one square that circle while, at the same time, the ratio of PRSI payers to pensioners is falling from 4:1 to 2:1? Fewer people will contribute to the fund, although more money will go out because we are committed to giving more money to pensioners and to other payments, and rightly so.

The Minister said that will cost approximately €2 billion. An additional €2 billion will go out while €645 million less will go into the fund. How will we maintain the fund in surplus? Did the 2002 report on the Minister's desk tell us not to decrease PRSI contributions but to increase them?

I agree with the Minister who said PRSI is a tax on work. However, there is no use deceiving workers because we will tax them in order to make up the shortfall in the social insurance fund. We had better tell the truth.

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