Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

There is not much point in waiting until 2010 to notify people. It is at this point that the people who are likely to be affected by this — as the Minister stated, up to 40,000 who are likely to discover on retirement that they are not entitled to the full State pension — need to be notified so that they can take action.

What advice is the Department providing to those people? Many will be current welfare recipients who are in their late 50s or 60s. They are not necessarily in any position to do anything about their insurance record. What exactly is the Minister suggesting those people do? Can he provide any clear advice and support to them, or is it a case that he will merely wait and let them discover in their own time that they do not have an entitlement which they thought they would have? The Minister needs to take action now. He needs to notify current welfare recipients in particular and provide clear advice to them on what action they can take. Failing that, he should look at some kind of tapering system.

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