Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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36. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the measures he is taking to gender-proof any changes to the State pension schemes; his views on a universal state pension; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8371/17]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I asked the Taoiseach about this earlier but I still find the answers supplied to my colleague, Deputy Boyd Barrett, a bit dispiriting. The 43,000 pensioners referenced will still be at a loss as the months and years go on. Has the Minister made any attempt to begin costing and ensuring we can have a gender-proofed universal pensions with a move to a system of caring credits?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The State pension system is very effective in ensuring that pensioners have a decent standard of living and results in more gender-equal outcomes in Ireland than in most European countries. The gender poverty gap for those over 65 in Ireland, using European Union, EU, figures, is 2.1%, compared with 4.2% across the EU as a whole. There are a number of reasons for this. First, other EU state pension systems generally relate the pension to lifetime earnings and ours does not. Second, our non-contributory pension is paid at 95% of our contributory pension rate. Finally, we have better provisions for widows in Ireland than in most EU countries. These factors result in the average payment to men over 66 being 2% higher than for women, despite lower average contributions into the Social Insurance Fund. This, combined with the targeted nature of the non-contributory pension, means Central Statistics Office poverty rates for men and women over 65 are both low and effectively at parity.

A universal State pension, paid at full rate to everyone over 66, regardless of their contributions or their means, would either be very expensive - costing an estimated extra €1 billion per year - or, if introduced on a cost-neutral basis, requiring a 14% reduction in the current rate of the State pension. This would be difficult to justify given that those with significant additional incomes would benefit most from the Deputy's proposal. Work is under way to replace the "yearly average" system, as I mentioned earlier, with a total contributions approach. The impact of this reform on gender is being considered very carefully and it will be assessed on its respective impact upon men and women.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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In the summer of 2011, the Minister's Department gave a strong warning on this, according to the Irish Examiner, which did some research in the area. It indicated the Department should not have proceeded with these effectively massive cuts to the cohort of pensioners born from the late 1940s onwards and who had irregular and incomplete contributions. They are now suffering year after year. At the time, Deputy Burton stated there was a choice between €475 million in cuts or €665 million in cuts. If one considers the cumulative effect of the change that took place, it may well run into hundreds of millions of euro in terms of the cost to the people themselves. The figure for those affected has been put at 43,000.

Does the Minister agree a universal tier one pension should be his first priority as a Minister before we start thinking about tiers two and three? There are massive tax expenditures on private pensions, amounting to approximately €2.5 billion that far outweigh the €1 billion mentioned by the Minister. Should we be trying to get justice at long last, particularly for the cohort of women pensioners?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I do not have a principled problem with there being a universal tier one pension paid to everyone in the way child benefit is, with a tier two pension - a top-up, if one likes - based totally on contributions made by a worker. Were one to design a pension system from scratch, one might very well do that and it would be a very good approach. As I mentioned, the difficulty is we estimate it would cost €1 billion to do this or, if we did it on a cost-neutral basis, we would have to reduce existing State pensions by 14%, which is not viable.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Has the Minister considered the tax breaks for private pensions?

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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Professor Alan Barrett of the Economic and Social Research Institute, to whom I referred earlier, has argued that in 2011, the rules of the game were changed in the middle of the game for the people born from the late 1940s onwards. That was a fundamental and grave injustice and the Minister should make it his business, while he is in the Department, to address that. I also referred earlier today to the important Age Action Ireland study by Ms Maureen Bassett, which clearly attempted to estimate the kind of losses that those 43,000 pensioners - the majority of them women - have suffered. Has the Minister read the report and case studies and does he believe it should be a policy initiative to be addressed?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I have read the Age Action Ireland report but I cannot recall the author. I intend to deal with this by moving from a system of calculating a contributory pension that is unfair to a system that is simple and fair and based on contributions. Pretty much anybody with a contributory or occupational pension has it calculated based on the number of years at work or in which contributions were made. It is a simple and understandable way of doing things but it is not what we have now. That is the approach I want to go for. I will bear in mind there will need to be provision for home carers' credits to recognise the fact that some people must take time out of work to look after children or disabled relatives. That must be integrated into any change.