Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is important to reiterate that €6.5 billion of all social welfare payments made by Department relates to pensions. The cost in this regard is increasing by €190 million each year as a result of the 17,000 additional people who claim pensions each year. As the Deputy is aware, the social protection system provides alternative methods in supporting pensioners who have been less attached to the workforce. These include the homemaker scheme, increases for qualified adults, widow's, widower's and surviving civil partner’s pensions which can be based on the PRSI record of the worker or the spouse and the means-tested non-contributory State pension.

The supports provided for pensioners have resulted in similar outcomes for male and female pensioners in Ireland, with poverty rates for women over 65 years being statistically the same or slightly lower than those for men.

My priority has been to fully maintain the maximum weekly rates of payments for pensioners. We have successfully done this in all the budgets I have been involved in, despite the fact that each year we have had to spend, happily, an extra €190 to €200 million on the significant numbers who arrived at retirement age in that year.

See this speech in context