At the same time, at the upper end, there is research that shows - I do not have the exact figures - that approximately 60% to 70% of the benefits of private pension tax relief accrue to higher earners who are usually men. That is the amount of money, not the volume of people who may have benefited from the scheme. That is the percentage of the resources - €2.9 billion, in the year for which we have the figures - that is going to men who are higher earners. We have a cemented-in system whereby we pour money into pensions through this Bill and through Revenue through tax relief expenditure, thus undercutting and planning to drain money from the pensions of ordinary citizens and in particular women. There is a disjoint.

The Minister made the point that we need to join the dots on it but we cannot simply look at private pension tax relief on its own. We must ask not simply if this is a good and nice thing that we would like to give people, but if it stands up as the best possible use of moneys in respect of pensions to deliver on the public State goals of encouraging a wider coverage of persons who may have pensions and addressing the gender pension gap. With respect, the Minister mentioned income replacement as a core goal. Income replacement for small numbers of very senior executives should be less of a policy priority goal than ensuring an adequate standard of living for all citizens and addressing the very substantial gender pension gap which we have in Ireland. In that context, a gender inequality distributional analysis of these measures is really important. It needs to be placed alongside the other decisions being made in respect of pensions in order that the best decision can be made.

Point (d) in my suggested report - this is a slightly different point - relates to the idea of the potential impacts or benefits of a shift from the marginal rates system which we have at the moment to a standard rating of 30% in respect of private pension tax relief. This is in good faith. This exact measure was one of the few measures in the MOU with the IMF during the period of recession not to be implemented. It was one of the measures suggested by all of the international bodies, the troika, back in the day. Some terrible ideas from the troika were implemented but its call for a standard rating of tax relief so that the same level of tax relief would be given to all persons who want to benefit from private pension tax relief - something that would make private pension tax relief useful, wider and more equitable - was one of the few measures in that MOU that was never implemented.

I will explain why this matters. It is 30%, so it is not about reducing pension relief for everybody. For a worker on the 20% rate who will only get a 20% tax relief in respect of their private pension, it is less of an incentive than it may be for someone will receive a 30% relief. Any time standard rating is discussed, it is framed as though its advocates want to cut the benefits for those benefiting from private pensions, but that is not the case. It is around widening the benefits for the majority of workers in Ireland. The idea is that if one provides a standard rate of, say, 30%, there is still a private pension tax relief which is beneficial for those on higher incomes but private pension tax relief is also being made relevant and accessible for others. It is actually about widening the pool of those who can benefit. I know the Government will point to the auto-enrolment scheme and say that is being offered instead, but we must look at the inequity of how much money is being given to those who are already the higher earners - the people with the €2 million pension pots - and are not at risk of ending up on the State contributory pension. They already have a reserve. The question is how much money they will have in retirement. It is not a matter of addressing a danger that the State will have to provide for them, or a danger of those persons not having adequate provision for their retirement. Rather than addressing the question of whether they will have a huge nest egg or a smaller one, we should address the figures that have been talked about which indicate that the majority of persons in Ireland will have nowhere near that amount in terms of their private pensions. I am concerned that a huge number of persons are at risk of falling even below the base State contributory pension if the dangerous proposals to extend the contributory requirement to 40 years are delivered. I am very passionate on this issue because it is one to which I devoted about six years of my life before I entered this House when I worked with older people’s organisations and women’s organisations across Ireland. I am really concerned that we are continuing to make the same mistakes again and again and that we are not making the best decisions for how we will prepare for our ageing population in the future and ensure there is equality of income and security for the majority of that population.