Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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232. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the cost of maintaining the State pension age at 66 years is included in the base for 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 in the Summer Economic Statement. [44690/21]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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As set out in the Summer Economic Statement (SES), the medium term fiscal strategy provides for an average 5% annual growth-rate increase in Voted expenditure out to 2025, equating to increases in spending of between €4.0 billion to €4.4 billion from 2022 to 2025.

A key part of the Estimates process involves agreement on the overall level of expenditure required to maintain Existing Level of Service (ELS). This process involves detailed analysis requiring validation at programme level and consideration of a range of factors including actual demand in the current year compared to that underpinning the budgetary allocation, the potential impacts of new and existing initiatives on demand and utilisation patterns, impact of demographics on demand, specific price pressures, as well as any capacity constraints that may exist.

The SES assumes ELS costs each year of 3% of the core expenditure base. There was no adjustment made to this ELS amount for changes to the State Pension age over the period to 2025, consistent with the position as set out in the Programme for Government, Our Shared Future.