Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We do know the size of it. I have shared with the House on a number of occasions the different figures that are involved in this. The key point I would make to Deputy Curran in response to the points he made is that the Government is not the employer. These were companies and organisations that were formed to provide services to which the State made a contribution. I know that Deputy Curran, as Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection, will appreciate the challenges involved here. As the Deputy knows, we are about to embark on a process in which we will be asking people, through the pensions master scheme and automatic enrolment, to forgo earnings to build up a pension in the future. However, we would face a great challenge were we to say that for another group of employees, we are going to do that retrospectively. How do we handle that issue for the citizens in our State? That is what is at the heart of this issue.

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