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

As set out in the response to the Deputy's parliamentary question, there will be a lengthy public consultation on this matter during which we will conduct meetings and negotiations with all of the public stakeholders and all of the people who have not yet retired. The purpose and the premise of the contributory State pension is to provide for people in their retirement. We have no intention of stripping people of what they are entitled to, but we do intend to devise a mechanism over the coming months that will be announced at the end of this, which it is hoped will be ratified by this House, and that will prepare people for what will be a fair and sustainable pension system based on the social insurance fund. Nobody should be in fear of something that has not yet been designed. We will always have a non-contributory State pension in this country to ensure that we have a minimum standard of living for people in the older years.

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