John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is very welcome news. At present, as the Minister knows, the social welfare rates, including the State pension, are determined as part of the annual budgetary process. There is no explicit link between the State pension rate and earnings or prices. This means the real value of the rate can change from year to year, depending on the general cost of living and the economic context.

As the Minister stated, the roadmap for social inclusion made an explicit and welcome commitment to provide income security for older people, including through benchmarking pension rates to salaries and inflation, and the establishment of a pension rates commission. While it is welcome to see the programme for Government commit to establishing a commission, it remains unclear what working timeline is in place to introduce this pensions benchmark. Can the Minister give a timeline for this, notwithstanding my welcome for her initial response?

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