Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am aware that I indicated that it might be sooner than now but the Government has decided to give it further consideration and that is its prerogative. However, the paper circulated to the social partners this week indicated that it would be done this year. As I outlined, we have genuinely been working very hard on a number of issues that are most relevant to people today and the fact that publication of the framework will be a number of months later than I had indicated should not delay its implementation because it was never going to be implemented in 2009 or 2010 anyway. I had always indicated that as in the UK it would probably start in 2012 approximately.

The number of people investing in their pensions has increased. Surprisingly, given the way the market has gone there are indications that people have started to provide even more for their future. I know that the particular age group in which we hoped to see an increase to 70% is at 61% so it is moving in the right direction.

The OECD report refers to figures from 2005 and since then the non-contributory pension has increased by 32% and the contributory pension has increased by 28%. The authors of the OECD report recognise that the increase in public pensions since 2005 will have improved the economic position of older people and they recognise that significant progress has been made in those years. As we know, the consistent poverty rate for older people has fallen to 2% from 3.7% in 2005 so progress has been made. The OECD report, while critical, has not taken into account the improvements made in the past four years.

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