Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I thank the Taoiseach for giving me all that information about the Green Paper on pensions. I did not ask him about the Green Paper on pensions. I asked him about the actuarial report, carried out by Mercer Consulting, on the social insurance fund. Let me raise it a second time. Do I understand from the Taoiseach's reply that the €300 pension will be introduced in five years' time? He said it would be introduced at the end of the term of Government, by which I presume he means in five years' time. Is that correct?

The Taoiseach promised during the general election campaign that the rate of PRSI contribution would be cut from 4% to 2%. Will that go ahead? How does he propose to fund it? The Taoiseach had available to him, at the time he made the promise, the information that the social insurance fund would go into deficit in three years' time. Will he go ahead with the cut in the PRSI rate and how does he propose to finance that cut?

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