John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As we are at the end of quarter 2 of 2019, it is an ambitious programme to start implementation in quarter 3 of 2020, especially in the light of the fact that the scheme requires underpinning by legislation. There is an amount of work to be done.

The Minister is right that there was extensive consultation but many people in the House do not know the outcome of that consultation in terms of policy formulation. I hope we get an opportunity to discuss the policy issue before the legislation appears. There should be a fairly substantial and detailed debate either in a committee or in the House rather than beginning with simply seeing the heads of the Bill. Policy issues of concern arise. I will mention two of them at this stage. One relates to 2010 when the idea was first mooted. There was a view at the time that the reckonable period would be 30 years. In more recent times, because of the interim arrangements from 2012, that has changed to 40 years. There needs to be a debate on the matter.

The other significant change is the minimum number of contributions required to qualify has increased from 260 to 520. These questions need to be discussed as policy issues before the legislation is produced.

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