Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 109: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the amount that will be lost from the social insurance fund if PRSI is cut to the levels promised in the programme for Government. [12088/08]

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 114: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if the Government will proceed with its programme for Government promise to cut levels of PRSI. [12090/08]

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 143: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs where he proposes to get the funds to pay rising unemployment costs if the social insurance fund can not meet the amount. [12091/08]

Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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Question 150: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs his views on whether the Government's promise in advance of the election in 2007 to slash PRSI rates was good policy. [12089/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 109, 114, 143 and 150 together.

Estimated costings were agreed between the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Finance in relation to the PRSI commitments in the Programme for Government. These suggest that, were the commitments to be implemented in full, the cost to the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) would be €645 million, in 2006 terms, in a full year. However, it should be noted that, if introduced as a package, the combination of measures will give rise to a compound effect with an estimated overall impact in the order of €685m based on figures supplied by the consultants who carried out the Actuarial Review of the Social Insurance Fund, 2005.

The Social Insurance Fund has sufficient resources to provide for the changes to the PRSI system and a rise in the number of benefit recipients. The effect over a five year period would be dependent on the sequencing of any changes to the PRSI rates. Obviously, however, decreasing contributions while the number of beneficiaries is rising will bring forward the time when exchequer subvention is required.

A key function of Government, accepting the role of the Exchequer as residual financier of the Fund, is to balance the need for contributions with liabilities — in an overall budgetary context; with any shortfall in the cost of benefits paid being, in the normal way, addressed by Exchequer subvention. If implemented, the Programme for Government proposals would not alter the fact that, between the Fund and the Exchequer, social insurance liabilities will be met. Their main effect would be to ease the cost of contributions on individual contributors and further strengthen the redistributive nature of the Fund.