Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Briefly, the report itself was quite lengthy and its executive summary alone contains 20 pages. In some ways, matters have moved on since and continue to do so. I do not believe the charges being applied to such schemes have become any cheaper. This is a small State at the edge of Europe and in some ways, the major insurance companies that deal with and invest pensions appear to believe they can charge people here more than is the case in their own home territories and this must be taken into account. I am unsure about the 1% limit but one must try to ensure people's pension pots and investments are not being eaten away by administrative or other such charges.. In addition, I note that in some cases, the pension levy was passed on rather than being absorbed from the existing charges being levied. In such cases, no hit was experienced by the pension industry that handles all these funds. I would rather it had been passed on to those who were investing and who in recent years already have been hit with other increases, such as the universal social charge, changes in taxation and so on. Such people have suffered an additional hit, rather than the industry itself reducing its charges. It would be useful were some kind of message contained within this Bill, even though it only deals specifically with the times of single or double insolvencies. It would be appropriate for a message to go out to the pension industry stating enough was enough and the industry needed to begin to row back on the charges being imposed.