Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Lest there be any doubt, everyone in the Government wants to encourage people to contribute to pension schemes. What has arisen is a ballot by staff who wanted to be able to withdraw their contributions because they did not want to continue paying money into a black hole, as Deputy Clare Daly described it. It is not that we do not want people to invest in their own pensions.

I understand that for a rule amendment to be made to the scheme the agreement of all members is required. Essentially, a small number of members can veto a rule amendment. That is the reason legislation is required on that point.

On the 1968 issue raised by Deputy Timmy Dooley, I have reviewed the papers. The issue was examined in great depth at the time by the former Minister, Mr. Noel Dempsey, with advice from the Attorney General which stands. When the people concerned signed contracts with Aer Rianta, they moved from being Civil Servants to being employees of Aer Rianta and did not carry pension rights with them.

On investment decisions and so on, to the best of my knowledge, the Department does not have in-depth details of the investment decisions made by the trustees. We are not members of and are not party to the funds. We do not have that type of information.

The key difference between the new section and the old one is the removal of the provision to allow the employers to involuntarily remove staff from the Irish airlines superannuation scheme, IAS, and place them with new pension funds. That is the main difference between the old and the new sections. We are removing that provision-----