Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the progress the Minister outlined. We all remember that back in 2012, there were some changes at that time to the method of calculation which caused many difficulties for people who had worked for more than ten years full-time but had insurance contributions going back many years. I came across one case of a person who came to Dublin and worked in a pub for two weeks at 17 or 18, went to England, had no insurance contributions and then paid contributions for more than 20 years. When that person applied for a pension, it went back almost 40 years or more and he had a very poor average contribution. He had got work experience for two weeks with a publican in Dublin, who was a neighbour and a family friend. It deprived him of a decent pension. It was a total anomaly. Thankfully, that has been ironed out.

The phraseology I saw before was the total set of contributions. Is the Minister now saying that the total contributions model is more or less finalised within the Department?

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