Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy knows, when this Government was formed we established the Pensions Commission to look at the whole area of pensions. Countries all over the world are grappling with how to meet pension costs into the future; one only has to look at what happened in France a few weeks ago. After the Pensions Commission completed its work, I secured Government approval for a range of measures on pensions. We are keeping the State pension age at 66 so anybody who wants to retire at this age will be able to do that. In order to pay for that, there will need to be incremental increases in PRSI rates. We are introducing new flexibility so that people who want to work for longer will be able to do so. That will be particularly attractive for people who want to improve their contribution record in order to qualify for a higher pension. We will provide a pension to long-term carers and then will move gradually over a ten-year period to the total contributions approach. That was a key recommendation of the Pensions Commission. I am happy to accept it because it is the fairest way to calculate a pension. Under the current system, a person could start working at 55, work until 66 and get a full pension. On the other hand, you could have a person who worked for 30 years, had gaps in their contribution record and they would qualify for a smaller pension. I do not believe that is fair.

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