Mr. Ronan Gill:

Hopefully, I will capture all the questions. If not, please come back to me. In response to Senator Feighan's question about alignment of retirement age, the schemes have rules around when someone can retire. In the 1951 scheme, a person was entitled to retire at 60 with pension payable at 60. The actual retirement age within the scheme is moving up towards State retirement age as the proportion of A class membership increases, so the actual retirement age in the scheme at the moment is, on average, 63. The scheme has to value its liabilities on the basis of the rules relating to it. The reality is that people are working for longer and the reason for this is because they do not have integrated pensions. Therefore, they will be solely reliant on their scheme pensions. By aligning the State retirement age to represent the average, we would get a reduction in the liabilities in the scheme and this would allow us to deal with the scheme in terms of how it invests. A similar issue arises in the regular wages scheme where the rules of the scheme are not aligned with the actual experience. Deputy Troy is right. CIÉ does not have the power to make those changes. Those rules are set out in a statutory instrument and would require a change to the latter, which requires a consultation process. CIÉ is recognising the reality that we must do things by agreement and if we do not have agreement, nothing changes. If we do not have agreement, the risk in the scheme essentially falls on to the active membership. Hopefully, that deals with that question.

On capping pensionable pay at the greater of 3.3 times the State benefit or current pay levels, it is like a seesaw. One either balances the seesaw by putting more assets in or by controlling the liabilities. The liability comes from the benefits being paid out to the members. If there is no cap on that benefit, the actuarial assumption will drive it up by virtue of inflation over time so one ends up with a very significant liability.

It is almost like throwing petrol on a fire. By capping it at a level, we are linking ourselves to some form of inflation-proofing but, at the same time, capping our exposure. We chose the State benefit because it will move as the State responds to inflation. The reality is that average wages in the State and in CIÉ have been moving ahead of inflation in recent years. It is drawing an increasing liability to the schemes. The proposal to link it to State benefit seeks to cap the liabilities in the scheme. It is something that will require a statutory instrument.

Deputy Troy asked whether, arising from the 1994 consolidation, the solvency issues of the scheme arose because we were not making the maximum contribution of 3.6 times in the case of the 1951 scheme or superannuation scheme or 2.7 times in the case of the regular wages scheme. I agree with my colleagues in the trade unions. There has been a breakdown in trust. I could sit here and say that the world is flat and they will say that it is round. The place for us to deal with these issues is the Workplace Relations Commission. We have committed to funding independent advice for the trade union group through the commission. It is the appropriate mechanism to establish whether CIÉ is at the root of it - I say we are not - and to get a sense of the trade union's position that CIÉ is at the root of it.

The employer contribution to the total scheme is in the order of €50 million a year. It is up from €17 million in 1994 and pre-1994. It is not that we have been short in funding the schemes. We are funding the schemes in accordance with the statutory instruments that require us to fund on the basis of actuarial advice. That is my position and I respect the position that has been articulated by the trade unions. The best place to get clarity on this is through the Workplace Relations Commission. There is an established mechanism within the State whereby we can agree to disagree or get to an agreement on what the issues are. We do not believe, on the basis of actuarial advice, that additional funding is the way to resolve this. The scheme's liabilities, as I said in my opening statement, are in the order of €450 million. Additional funding will not sort that out. The rules of the scheme, if we move up from the existing levels of contribution, which would be in the order of a 10% increase, would move us up from €50 million to €55 million but €5 million will not make any difference to this. It is a lot of money but the numbers are very big. What is needed is calm and prudent reflection on what the advice is and on what changes we can make now. My mother used to tell me to start investing in my pension when I was 22 or 23, to make small changes and move forward. That is what CIÉ wants to do and we believe the place to do it is in consultation with our colleagues in the trade unions through the Workplace Relations Commission rather than through any other mechanism.

To answer the detailed questions on Appendix 1, that is the way it should be dealt with. I am not in a position today to say whether it is a complete CIÉ document. It may be an extract from a document. I am not in a position to say it is complete. I will refer-----