Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy. Of course, the sustainability of our social insurance scheme is an important concern of Government. What are we doing in relation to it? First, it is important to acknowledge the Social Insurance Fund is in healthy surplus and is a big part of our overall healthy public finances at the moment. Second, this is the very reason we are going ahead with the auto-enrolment pension scheme. As we roll it out next year, it will pose challenges and costs because it is a transformational scheme. However, it is at the heart of ensuring sustainability in pension policy in the decades ahead. It is by encouraging and incentivising, in particular, those starting their working life to set money aside to complement a pension provided by the State later in life. Finally, an important element of it of all is that as we all, I hope, look forward to longer lives, if we have the opportunity to work for longer, as many want to do, that makes an important contribution to the dependency rate the Deputy referred to. It is an important issue the Deputy has called out and the commission of care report on this that will be out early next year will, I hope, inform a really good debate on the matter.

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