Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 360: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the extent to which revised Central Statistics Office population projections and the impact of the economic downturn and hence migration levels are being factored into the predicted dependency ratios that underpin pension reform; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28799/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The most recent analysis of the impact of long term demographic pressures on pension expenditure is given in the Green Paper on Pensions (October 2007). This analysis was based on population projections available at that time, which were from the Actuarial Review of the Social Insurance Fund (Mercer, June 2007) and the Department of Finance's long term pension expenditure model. Both projections took account of the structure of the population identified in the 2006 Census of Population and the most recent demographic trends up to 2007. A similar approach was taken in the Central Statistics Office's 2011-2041 population projections, which were published in April 2008. All of these projections showed a broadly similar pattern of increasing old age dependency over the medium to long term.

The first indication of more recent migration trends will be available when the CSO's Population and Migration Estimates for April 2008 are published. These results are expected in September 2008.