Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think the Minister accepted in her reply that there is a genuine problem. A company which is in a perfectly healthy financial state can decide tomorrow morning, for whatever reason - it might be subject to a takeover or it might want a temporary boost to the share price if it is a quoted company - to wind up the defined benefit pension scheme. I have received correspondence in the last week from somebody who paid into a defined benefit pension scheme for the past 30 years. The company involved unilaterally decided to wind it up, even though the company is not winding itself up because it is perfectly solvent.

The person who has paid into that scheme for 30 years will end up with a pension of some €24 per week, which is outlandish. We are talking here about solvent, healthy companies which can well afford to maintain the responsibilities they undertook to their employees when they signed them up for the defined benefit pension scheme.

I am open to suggestions such as letting a third party, like the Pensions Board, decide whether a company is sufficiently healthy to meet its obligations in this regard. The bottom line is that there is a problem here that must be resolved. I take the Minister's point regarding the OECD's observations and the qualifications it mentioned. Ultimately, however, that body came down in favour of what we are proposing here. I am likewise aware of the anti-avoidance provisions in the United Kingdom. Any time one seeks to impose an additional tax, burden or obligation, those affected will seek out avoidance measures and the State must put measures in place to counteract that. I take the point that our economy is different from the United Kingdom economy, with the risk being much more widely spread in that jurisdiction. However, the introduction of the relevant legislation in the UK does not seem to have had a substantial detrimental effect on its economy. In legislating as they did, the British authorities were conscious of all the issues to which the Minister referred, but they proceeded as they did because they recognised there was a problem, as does the OECD.

I hope the Minister will reconsider this issue before Report Stage. If she is prepared to offer some type of compromise which would at least impose certain barriers in the way of perfectly healthy employers walking away from their obligations, then I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.