Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

Our time is relatively limited. The challenges facing the pensions industry and the authority are immense. The role of the Pensions Authority has probably not assisted in the crisis over the past period and we will struggle to get to the bottom of it here in one session; even over a Dáil term, we would struggle to do so. It is appropriate that we take the opportunity to question Mr. Begg's expertise for the appointment. We were certainly led to believe that was part of the role of this committee, even if that role is a little bit weak when it is not going to make any difference to the appointment. Mr. Begg is obviously aware of the discussion around whether that appointment was appropriate, although it was not his decision. It is something that is in the public domain.

The Chairman pointed out that the key function of the authority is to regulate and influence policy regarding pensions in order to ensure that the expectations of pensioners are met and that schemes are run with good governance. Given that function, it is appropriate to question Mr. Begg's role in terms of some of the pension schemes he has been involved in, including the one to which he drew attention in his presentation, namely, the Irish Airlines Superannuation Scheme, IASS. As he said, that was a very complex scheme involving multiple employers and groups of people, existing and deferred pensioners and current contributors. It had a huge deficit and moneys were put into it to defray some of that deficit. The real travesty is not anything said in the Dáil but rather the impact of those decisions on the livelihoods of those affected by what went on.

One of our considerations here is meeting legitimate expectations. Since that scheme was restructured, retired members, numbering approximately 5,000 people, have seen incomes reduced by €500,000 a month. These people were specifically excluded from any of the talks in the negotiation process. Mr. Begg, both in his roles on the board of Aer Lingus and, more particularly, in ICTU, stood over the process whereby those people did not have a voice in negotiations, going against the idea of "nothing about us without us". He did so even though decisions that came out of that process meant that they suffered a loss of income. Furthermore, no compensation measures were put in place to defray that loss, even though this took place for other groups. The bitter irony is that their colleagues who worked in America and England got full pension entitlements while their own legitimate expectations were cruelly dashed. How could that process have been stood over? How is that track record going to be beneficial to pensioners going forward? Retired staff associations and, indeed, the deferred members and so on repeatedly wrote to Mr. Begg and to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions seeking assistance and seeking a seat at the table and yet the door was closed on them.

I would also be a little bit concerned that the trade union movement has not advanced the very necessary provision that pensioners who, in many instances, are former trade union members should have access to workplace relations bodies and so on in matters that refer to their pensions once they retire.