Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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426. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the total amountin the social insurance fund at 31 December 2016; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9814/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The surplus of income over expenditure at the end of 2016 was €460 million. The surplus in 2016 is the first such surplus on the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) since 2007. The SIF faces significant financial challenges in the years ahead in order to ensure adequate and sustainable social insurance pensions and benefits for a growing and ageing population as well as the reform and development of the system in line with commitments in the Programme for a Partnership Government.

An Actuarial Review of the SIF has recently commenced and is expected to be completed by mid-2017. The report from the review will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The outcome of the review will inform the Government in its considerations of appropriate social insurance pension and benefit levels in the years ahead, the financing of such payments, the value for money received by PRSI contributors, the scope for extending and modernising social insurance cover as well as the demographic and other pressures facing the SIF.