I would have Deputy Richmond out canvassing for me but I do not think we would be compatible.

The programme for Government refers to investing in our communities. We have seen how community has been such an important part of the response to the Covid pandemic. One group of workers have led our communities for many years and they are community employment, CE, supervisors. The Government has done much work in recent months to try to find a solution to the issue of community employment supervisors' pensions and I ask that everything that can be done is done in the coming weeks to make sure this work results in a delivery.

I echo my colleague's call for support for workers and managers throughout the country. We have totally depended on them for a long number of years during which time they have done Trojan work. They deserve to be treated with respect when it comes to their pensions, like every other public servant in the country. Their input and contribution to society has been immense. For this reason, I support my colleague's call.

I want to be associated with this. All of us know the work done by CE supervisors. It is absolutely marvellous. They deserve to get their proper pay and increments. I know the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, is working on this. I ask the Tánaiste to speak to him. This is very serious because the CE supervisors need it to be sorted.

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle should not be embarrassed at all at mistaking Deputy McAuliffe for Deputy Richmond. I am regularly mistaken for the Taoiseach and we look nothing alike. I can see no reason anyone could not make an honest mistake about the two Deputies.

On the question at hand, this is a long-standing issue. It has been a problem for more than a decade. Five Governments have tried to deal with it. There is a fundamental difficulty in solving the problem. CE supervisors appear to be seeking a public sector pension but they are not public servants. They were never hired as public servants and did not make a contribution to the public service pension scheme throughout their working lives, in the way every other public servant does. If we give a public sector pension to somebody who is not a public servant and who did not make public sector pension contributions, the knock-on demands would be incalculable. This is the problem. We need to be honest with ourselves about this and to be honest with them about it. Perhaps we can do something prospective for future pensions. Perhaps we could do something in terms of a retrospective recognition gratuity. This is the space in which there might be a solution and not in conceding something that was not true.