Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

This issue seems complex but is quite simple. It affects a small number of people — no more than 100. The effect is that people working in Ireland who have been paying into the social insurance fund can transfer the value of their payments into the European PSEC fund if they take up a job with one of the European institutions, and that those coming back from having worked in a European institution to work here can transfer the value of the fund back again. There is freedom of movement between the two schemes so people are not disadvantaged in any way. It is a technical amendment which affects probably less than 100 people. Nevertheless, it is important to them that their pension rights are protected.