Professor Philip Lane:

Without commenting on that company, this is a huge issue for everyone. The one area of the financial system that we do not regulate is pension funds. There is a different regulator for pension funds. As part of a new European system, we are starting to gather more information from pension funds. In general, this issue will be important for Ireland. The Government has been developing it for years. There have been many reviews about how to build a sustainable occupational pension system so that people do not just have to rely on the State pension system. There are huge political issues there with the balance between individuals versus their employer and the appropriate rate of contribution, whether compulsory or opt-in. There is a huge range of issues which I would hope that the political system finalises sooner rather than later. Pre-crisis, we had a partial answer for some of this in the State system, with the National Pensions Reserve Fund, but that was blown away by the crisis. We have to rebuild. Post-crisis, this is a case of focusing on these issues which do not manifest themselves in a crisis or year by year. This is one of the biggest financial issues facing the country. It is not just about one employer and its workers. It is very broad. It is a fundamental inter-generational issue here and elsewhere. It is not a good system if workers rely on their employer to provide a pension. We saw with Waterford Crystal a number of years ago, and so on, that it is not a good system to have what we have here, which is a very fragmented pensions industry where there are many specific pension funds. Coming up with a national policy on this is important.