Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On self-employed contributions, if the payer of said contributions does not make a profit in whatever profession he or she is in for one or more years - which happened to many people, including some Members of this House - that could have a detrimental effect on his or her pension. Such contributors could buy out extra contributions to qualify until the financial crash, when emergency measures changed the position and made it virtually impossible to qualify. The period from 2035 onwards has been heralded as a time of great stretching of measures, given the population age imbalance. It is not as much as people say. A huge number of people are entering the contribution period now and they are all young.

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