There seems to be a lot of confusion and some degree of incoherence in respect of what the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, described as the bonkers situation of the outstanding pension anomalies whereby 42,000 people lose as much as €1,500 a year as a result of changes that were made back in 2012. The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, informed a meeting of the Select Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection - at which she was discussing the forthcoming social welfare Bill - that she recognises the problem and wants to fix it. She said it would be fixed in the short term and that she is going to bring proposals forward fairly quickly. She said she is busy preparing a memorandum for Cabinet. Today, it is reported that she is being forced to perform a U-turn. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, might well smile but that is what is being said. It is reported that there will not be any attempt to resolve this matter in the short term. In the context of the social welfare Bill, can the Taoiseach confirm whether the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, will be bringing proposals before the House in the context of resolving this issue and beginning the reversal of the policy initiative that took place in 2012 under her predecessor, Deputy Burton?

The Deputy will know that the various pension anomalies actually relate to four different sets of rules, some of which were changed in 2012 and some of which actually date back to 1961. The averaging rule dates back to 1961. The Minister for Finance's use of the word "bonkers" was in reference to the marriage bar, which ended in 1973 and which certainly was bonkers. That is a different issue again. The Minister for Finance has been extensively misquoted since then.

The context was fairly clear.

The situation will be rectified-----

The Taoiseach still has some work to do in the media.

A lot of it by the weekend.

-----by 2020 when we will introduce the new total contributions approach. Under that approach, it will not matter when a person made his or her contributions. Gaps will not matter. What will matter will be the number of contributions made over the period of someone's working life, namely, in the 50 years between the ages of 16 and 66. There will be generous provision to disregard periods of home caring. We are looking at some interim measures but the social welfare Bill, which was approved by Cabinet today, will implement the measures announced in the budget. It will not implement any of those interim measures because we do not yet have costing proposals to do so. We may not have these quite some time.