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

A number of issues have been raised. I appreciate what the Minister said about the Mercer report. In terms of progressing this legislation, the Government suggested in regard to Dáil reform that the heads of Bills would be published and we would have time to evaluate them and take counsel from groups which would be affected by their provisions, and in the case of this legislation some of them have managed to take the time in their busy schedules to get to grips with this highly complex Bill and submit their considerations. It would have been appropriate for the Mercer report to have been published at that stage. I am not sure if other Deputies have managed to look through it but it runs through a series of options and sets out the potential outcomes. It does not does not run through the provisions in the Bill before us. It is a useful tool in examining how various options could work and who would and would not benefit from them.

For instance, the scheme I proposed is not set out in the report but it comes close to option 1A in it. A range of options are set out and the Minister's proposal comes close to another option but it is not that exact option. Therefore, the report would not have given us an insight into what the Government had been planning other than us running through figures in another way. The Minister made her proposal prior to engaging with the Mercer report, which she examined but none of the options in it was the one she went with in the end. The report was given to the Minister in January and we have been given it at the last minute. If we had been given it earlier, we could have had a useful discussion on it to examine who exactly would benefit under a new priority order of distribution in the case of a defined benefit scheme being wound up, which is the eventuality with which we are dealing.

The Minister said there are 803 defined benefit schemes, 400 of which are secure and there are no issues with them. That leaves the other 50% with which there are a variety of issues and 20% of them with which there are major issues, which is a substantial number. We do not know the scale of the membership of those 20% of schemes. It could be the top 20% of those schemes but I do not believe it is as the ESB and other such groups have the big schemes which we have mentioned. We do not know how many people are likely to be affected and that is the reason I welcome this legislation. I am critical in some ways of it being rushed through but I welcome the fact it is being rushed in order that we have legislation in place to address the eventuality of a scheme being wound up in terms of the 160 schemes that are in danger of not reaching the required funding standard and ending up becoming insolvent and this process being triggered. We do not know the figures involved, whether it is 10,000 active members with so many pensioners and deferred members. It would have been useful to have those figures. For the benefit of such members, we could have used the Mercer report to examine who would be most likely affected. The majority of people who are members of this type of scheme might be entitled to very low pensions. They may have been on a low income in the companies in which they were employed throughout their working lives.

I could have a technical debate with the Minister on the merits of my proposals over hers but I am not inclined to do that because it would go over the heads of others. All I will say is that I am adamant that the first priority at a minimum must be that every member of a scheme, in the event of it becoming insolvent, should have the required contributions to allow them to be entitled to the State contributory pension being bought on their behalf. At a minimum they should have that entitlement and the pensioners already in a scheme should have a minimum benefit of €12,000. Those are the early priorities in this respect. The others priorities are to ensure that as the fund is being is distributed, it is distributed on a more equal basis to the lower paid in those schemes.

On the issue of the deferred members, the Minister said it would be difficult for them to be represented. We have, through the trade union movement and other groups, a system of advocacy in many other areas of law. We need to find some mechanism to address this and I will submit an amendment on Report Stage to allow for an advocate to be appointed or designated to represent the interests of deferred members. An advocate such as the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament or another group could be specified at the behest of the Minister through regulation rather than being specified in the legislation. The Minister, through regulation, could designate some group or groups - bearing in mind that groups form and disband - over time and that their duty and first responsibility would be to represent the deferred members in the regrettable event of a scheme being wound up or in the event of those members having to deal with the labour rights apparatus.