Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

If the Deputy thinks about it, she will realise why. Notwithstanding all the work and contribution that women make, statistically they live longer than men by a couple of years. From the €6.7 billion that will be spent on pensions by the State this year, a slightly greater proportion of that will go to women than to men, particularly for those on a State contributory pension or a non-contributory pension.

I am sure the Deputy would endorse that.

The ESRI study, which I went through in detail this morning although the Deputy quibbled a little, comes from a recognised research institution. The study showed that women do slightly better. Many women are in a household with two adults, a man and a woman, and household income is distributed evenly. The ESRI therefore found that there was no measurable difference between women and men.

Regarding Deputy Coppinger's third point on changes to the lone parent payment, my objective is to help people get into work on either a part-time or a full-time basis. The way to do that and to get a well-paying job is to get access to opportunity in terms of education, training and work experience. We have had a tradition of leaving people welfare-dependent for 18 to 22 years, going back to the early 1970s when the first payments for lone parents were introduced.

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