674. Deputy Patricia Ryan asked the Minister for Social Protection to provide a detailed update on the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission on Pensions, specifically on the creation of a separate account within the social insurance fund to fund State pensions. [44569/24]

In September 2022, in response to the report from the Commission on Pensions, I announced the largest ever series of reforms to the State Pension System.  Since this announcement, the following reforms have been introduced:

• State Pension age is remaining at 66 years and is not increasing to 67 or 68 over time as recommended by the Commission.

• A person can now choose to defer drawing down their State Pension to any age between 66 and 70.

• Considerable enhanced State Pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependents for 20 years or more.

• A ten-year phased transition from the yearly average method of calculation of State Pension (contributory) to the Total Contributions Approach (TCA) as the sole method of calculation will begin in January 2025.

• A smoothed earnings method to calculating a benchmarked/indexed rate of State Pension payments has been introduced as an input to the annual budget process.

• Social Insurance contributors now have access to an improved PRSI contribution statement and can now more easily understand their contribution history.

• The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (D/ETE) is introducing legislation that will allow an employee to stay in employment until the State Pension age meaning a contract of employment cannot be used to compel them to retire before State Pension Age if they wish to remain in employment.

In order to deal with the predicted shortfalls in the Social Insurance Fund (SIF) and address the sustainability of the State pension system, the Government agreed that it would be more prudent to introduce gradual and incremental increases in social insurance contributions rather than increasing State pension age and creating a separate pensions account in the SIF.

The PRSI Roadmap with proposed PRSI increases was published in Q4 2023 and the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024 now sets out the PRSI increases of 0.7% for employers, employees and the self-employed over the next 5 years.

Any further increases will be set every five years, and informed by the outcome of the Actuarial Review of the SIF.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.