Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy O'Dea took it from the top in addressing the industrial relations machinery of the State. This is pensions legislation and my remit is limited to that. I have heard what Deputies O'Dea and Daly have said in that pensions are a key part of industrial relations issues for companies and workers. From a pensions legislation perspective, I can send a copy of my note to people. There are three types of members: pensioners, active members and deferred members. All these must be notified by trustees of the different elements that I read into the record.

This is an area in industrial relations legislation. As we saw, companies and unions attend the Labour Relations Commission and try to thrash out a viable and sustainable scheme for the pension fund as part of considering the viability of a company. I can certainly speak to my colleague, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, but I do not know if there has been any work done on that. I will revert to the Deputies in that respect. It would be dishonest to say it is part of the remit of this Bill, as it is not.

Much of this issue centres on the quality of information available to people from trustees. Considering the guidelines and legislation, I will work with the pensions regulators and the Pensions Ombudsman, who handles many individual cases where people feel there is a grievance or the pensions have not been calculated properly, in drawing up guidelines to see if there are ways in which we can improve the information available to the three categories of members. On the positive side, this is the first time that deferred members' interests are being positively taken into account and being reflected in the legislation.

At my request the Department held a very detailed review of all the issues raised in the Mercer report. Some of the members of the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament were party to the consultation. Many of the scenarios set out in the Mercer report were discussed by stakeholder representatives, including older people, the pensions industry, employers and trade unions. The Mercer report entailed a detailed external review and the scenarios were presented in many cases to the stakeholders. The clearest conclusion from all the exercises on consultation undertaken was the benefit of putting a notional floor in place to protect low pensions. It was the clearest message that came to me and it is what I have tried to implement in this legislation.

As Deputy Ó Snodaigh has pointed out, as in the Mercer report we can all produce different scenarios but in the legislation we must opt for one. I have made the case as to why the one I have adopted offers the most, especially in the context of the current difficult economic position. It offers a floor of decency for existing pensioners and we hope the numbers restructuring will be small.

The number of double insolvencies in particular will be very small and perhaps there will not be any, but it seeks to protect low pensions.

It is important to recognise that people who have retired and are in receipt of a pension are not in a position to make good the losses they suffer. We have a proportionate arrangement set out to address those losses. We had to be cognisant of the Attorney General’s advice on higher paid pensioners. One must recognise that people who have higher benefits have generally made higher contributions - not always as Deputy Daly said, because of the way certain pension funds could change entitlements - but generally the majority of middle and upper income level workers have paid a proportionate contribution. The legal advice, as with the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest legislation is that one cannot discriminate against any particular group and the measures one takes have to be fair and proportionate. The advice of the Attorney General on the contribution of people with pensions in excess of €60,000 at 20% is that it is proportionate and would meet the constitutional requirements.