Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, the Deputy must have misunderstood me earlier. There will be no public consultation on this anomaly. We know what we need to do to fix it and we will do it. The public consultation is in regard to probably the most progressive changes we will be making as a State to our total pension contribution system, which will see sweeping changes in 2020. There is absolutely not a chance in hell that one would make the changes we are proposing to make without a public consultation.

Second, the Deputy might go back to check his party's budget proposal. Sinn Féin did not fix it; it decided to fix it over the next three years. The Deputy should not talk about kicking a can down the road when his party decided in its budget proposal that it would introduce a bit of the payment this year, a bit next year and a bit the year after. That is kicking it down the road.

Let me very clear. I am not playing politics on this issue. This is an anomaly that is affecting 36,000 Irish citizens, many of whom have come to our offices because they feel disrespected and feel their dignity has been taken from them. We are going to fix it and we are going to fix it as soon as I possibly can fix it. That is the only guarantee I can give the Deputy until I have the full report in front of me.

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