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

The Minister has indicated that she intends to bring the redesigned TCA to the Cabinet in the near future. I ask that as soon as that happens that it be published in order that Members of this House can have a real debate on it because there is very real and significant concern about the arrangement whereby the total number of contributions will be recorded over a working life of 40 years instead of 30. Most Members are very conscious of the anomalies that arose the last time a significant change was made in 2012 and we do not want to go down that road again. The Minister will tell us about the different credit arrangements for caring and so forth, but that is the detail we need to see and discuss. The real concern is that if we use a 40-year cycle, a significant number of people will be worse off than if the were to remain in the averaging system.

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