Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 11 April 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection
Scrutiny of the Pensions (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2017: Irish Association of Pension Funds and Irish Congress of Trade Unions
Mr. Jerry Moriarty:
Yes, there can be. All those schemes would be on funding proposals, and because of the aggregate figures I gave, where there are more assets than liabilities, for the system as a whole I think it is fair to say most of the schemes that do not currently meet the standard are probably pretty close to getting there. A lot of them would have put in ten year funding plans eight or nine years ago, so they are coming to the end of that. A lot of the schemes would probably have done a combination of things in an effort to get back to full funding, such as reducing some of the benefits within the scheme. Quite often what schemes would do is take out any future promised increases or change retirement ages, which increases the overall funding position, but it will also involve additional contributions from employers, and often from employees as well. There would be a lot of pain in terms of getting back to that full funding position.
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