Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 68: To ask the Minister for Finance, further to Parliamentary Question No. 165 of 23 March 2010, if he will make a statement detailing the respective sets of assumptions and reference periods referred to by him in his reply on which the very different public pension spending projections contained in the national pensions framework and the OECD Economic Survey: Ireland 2009 were based. [14403/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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As noted in the OECD Economic Survey: Ireland 2009, the projections on pensions are sourced from the joint Economic Policy Committee-European Commission Ageing Report on economic and budgetary projections for the EU-27 member states. The Ageing Report projections run to 2060 and national projections to 2050. The Ageing Report assumptions differ somewhat from national assumptions and are the reason for the difference in projections.

The Ageing Report's economic assumptions were finalised before the start of economic crisis in early 2008. In contrast, our national projections recognise the considerable fall-off in the starting economic position since then and its knock-on effects on the GDP level in the long run. The Ageing Report is based on harmonised EU population projections while national pension projections are based on CSO population projections. There are also slight differences in the long-run economic assumptions used by both as the Ageing Report is based on an EU-wide set of convergence criteria. Both sets of projections tell the same story of increasing pressure on pensions in the long run from an ageing population. The recent wide-ranging reforms announced in the National Pensions Framework were taken in this context.