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

As soon as I say it, it will be over. To answer the Deputies' questions, the letter is quite lengthy and it explains exactly what needs to happen and who needs to do what. In the main, people will not have to do anything and I will explain why. I will answer Deputy Curran's questions first. It is 520 contributions because these people have already qualified for the new pension. However, they received a reduced rate because of the averaging.

I will now address the issue of gaps in a person's record. The balance of the letters will be sent out by the end of this week to all Irish residents, or the beginning of next week at the latest. As we have their records, we already know that in 65% to 70% of cases people are entitled to an uplift. We have already done a trawl of our internal systems to identify people who will get an uplift. They will be told they are getting an uplift, that the review is to be conducted, how much their new payment will be and when it will come into effect.

There is not a delay. It could not have been done without legislation being passed and I, along will other Deputies, will attempt to do that, starting tomorrow. We will automatically be able to tell the majority of people who have a full record on the system what their new entitlement will be. The people who will need to help us with the conducting of the review are those who have gaps in their contributions. Some people will be able to tell us the reason for the gaps. In many cases, it will be due to caring for children and we will already have the children's birth dates and PPS numbers but if we do not have them, we will ask for them. In other cases, the gaps will be due to people looking after wives, husbands, grandparent, aunts or some other loved one. It will literally be as easy as giving us the information. People need to be reassured that there is probably no legal way of proving a gap from 1977. We are, however, doing this collectively as a Parliament because it is the right thing to do, that is, to look after the people who were adversely affected by the changes in 2012. We are not going to further punish people by putting them through loads of hoops. We want to give these people the money they are entitled to.

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