Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are many arguments for and against raising employer's PRSI. Perhaps we will have them another day. There are arguments in favour and arguments against as well.

The difficulty we have with the 520 week rule or the 260 week rule is that it is simply not the solution in the medium term. Few people get any other pension by contributing to this extent. A person can get a full pension by contributing for 520 weeks for ten years. In any other line of work, to get a full pension a person has to contribute for 20 or 30 or 40 years. The way it works at the moment is that it has to be the right ten years. If the ten years are spread out over the wrong period, a person in that situation ends up getting less. That is why the solution is to move away from a 260 or a 520 week rule to the total contributions approach. We have discussed that before and I know we will discuss it again.

Reference was made to the Independent News and Media defined benefit pension schemes. I have no wish to open up another debate on a different issue. I will be speaking on the issue later tonight in a different forum. There are different types of pensions and we have discussed this before. Any defined benefit pension is a private trust managed by trustees and it has its own deed of trust.