Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I apologise as I will have to leave to speak in the Dáil.

I have a couple of questions, but I will begin by making a few points. I accept that this is different, in that it is a statutory scheme, but let us look at it from a pensioner's perspective. Certainty about the future is something that people spend their whole lives trying to achieve, but there is a point at which it becomes too late to do that if something interjects. For some people, in particular those with a total reliance on the CIÉ pension, a significant issue arises. That has been made even worse by some of the changes to the social welfare legislation that were enacted in 2012 and 2013 and reduced people's entitlement to full pensions unless they fulfilled certain criteria. We must acknowledge that this is a serious issue for people living in poverty.

Discussions on this matter often come across as being very academic, so an indication of exactly what kind of money people would exist on - there are various grades, of course - if they were exclusively reliant on a full pension from CIÉ would be useful. It is a sizable set of schemes at 16,000 people, for whom this is critical.

I will pick up on the point that was made about two parties signing up. Regarding whether the 1951 pension scheme was fully complied with in terms of what was submitted to the Pensions Authority in 2013, was any CIÉ board member who is currently on the 1951 scheme committee also a member of that committee in 2013 or has its membership changed totally? Has there been some crossover?

Regarding independent legal opinion, a figure of £30,000 was mentioned. How much would be required? Knowing whether the £30,000 would be sufficient would be useful. Are strings attached to the £30,000? If its provision is contingent on something being done in return for it, that is a different proposition.

I would like to hear the other side's response to my next point. It has been stated that the employees rejected an increase in their contributions. Just as it was a hard time for legal entities like the CIÉ board, it was a tough time for individuals who had significant additional costs imposed on them. It might be useful to hear whether there were other reasons for the unions to take that decision. We need a balanced understanding of the situation.

Obviously, the legal advice has to be independent. Essentially, we are discussing freeing up money to get legal advice as opposed to the advice being commissioned by CIÉ, given that the latter would raise issues of privilege and so on. What advice is being sought? There are large amounts of documentation, primary legislation and secondary legislation. Is the advice focused on that aspect or does it need to be wider? Have the trustees commissioned any legal advice? I presume that option is open to them. Is there the funding capacity to commission that advice?