Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

The are three groups involved, namely, the self-employed who own their pension funds, those in the public service and Civil Service whose pensions are indexed to their final pay, and employees in the PAYE system who do not own their pensions funds and whose benefits are subject to the whims of what is happening on the stock market on the day they retire. Furthermore, the latter group cannot defer the date on which they take their pension benefit or continue to work for a longer period. This issue should be dealt with now because, as the Minister is aware, it could be two to five years before the recommendations from the discussions on pensions ongoing at Government level are implemented. Therefore, a significant number of people will be discriminated against in the meantime unless this issue is given greater priority. If it is not be dealt with this year, it certainly should be given priority in next year's Finance Bill.