Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

We are not necessarily talking about the pensions of today but the Pensions Board is advising people through its awareness campaigns to ensure they make provision for their pensions, and this is working successfully. We have seen an increase in the last number of years in the number of people making some extra private provision. It is not as high as we would like it to be. Obviously we wanted to hit approximately 70%, but it is increasing. All that work is going on at the same time. We must take on board the range of views that has come across in the submissions and some of the international experience, which is very different. We have the benefit of being able to see what has happened in places such as Australia and New Zealand. Given all that and the level of interest there has been, it will take a few months to tie it all together. All I can commit to is that it is still the intention to bring it to Government by the end of the year.

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