Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 131: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the sum of funds available within the social insurance fund and the amount on balance within the fund in each year over the past five years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24122/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Social Insurance Fund derives its income mainly from pay-related social insurance contributions from both employers and employees. It provides insured contributors with both long-term pension benefits and short-term benefits such as unemployment and disability payments.

The following table outlines the Social Insurance Fund Receipts, Expenditure, Annual Surplus and Cumulative Surplus for each year since 2003. The figures for 2007 are provisional figures.

Provisional receipts for 2008 to the 30th April were €2,870m while expenditure for the period was €2,643m.

The fund operates on a 'pay as you go' basis with the Exchequer contributing to the extent that expenditure exceeds income in any year. This increasing cumulative surplus in the fund is the continuation of a trend which commenced in 1997 when a surplus arose for the first time since the fund was established in 1953.

In the previous forty-four years of the existence of the fund, there was a shortfall between the amount of income received into the fund and the amount of expenditure paid out of it, which was made up by an Exchequer subvention in each year, as provided for under the Social Welfare Acts.

The Acts also provide for the investment of the amount of the surplus arising in the fund. The investment account of the fund is managed by the National Treasury Management Agency, subject to guidelines issued by the Minister for Finance.