Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 July 2023
164. Deputy Joan Collins asked the Minister for Social Protection when the Government is planning to implement the commitment to benchmark pensions in ‘A Roadmap for Pension’s Reform 2018-2023’ or pension benchmarking commitments 22, 23 and 24 in the ‘Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025’. [32978/23]
View answerAs part of the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025, Government committed to finalising an approach for the benchmarking and indexation of pension payments.
Last September, I announced a series of landmark reforms to the State Pension system. The measures are in response to the recommendations from the Commission on Pensions and represent the biggest ever structural reform of the Irish State Pension system.
As part of this, in line with the recommendations of the Pensions Commission, a smoothed earnings method (based on average earnings excluding overtime and irregular payments) to calculating a benchmarked/indexed rate of State Pension payments will be introduced as an input to the annual budget process and will be submitted to Government for their consideration in September each year, commencing this year.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
