Mr. Jim Murray:

As to pensioners having no say in restructuring, that is true strictly speaking if the Deputy means that they do not have a certain established right in law or something like that. In practice, however, time is of the essence. It must not be possible under any circumstance for an employer to close a scheme overnight before anyone has a chance to offer an opinion. The Pensions Council would concur with much of what Mr. Donohoe stated about the parties to the contract being the ones who should play a part through the trustees, who are supposed to be looking after all of the parties in the scheme. Often, pensioners are a very organised and vocal group, which they are perfectly entitled to be and there is no problem with that. The Pensions Council would feel that it would not be quite correct to say without qualification that pensioners had no rights.

Regarding younger members, I should expect that the council is well aware of the general arguments against many of the points that it is for. It was not entirely convinced by the argument that, when combined with a funding proposal, which would be an element, an extension would necessarily be adverse to the younger members. This issue would arise in the context of any restructuring scheme. The younger members will be well able to make their thoughts known, as most of them will probably be active members. Actually, we do not know. The number of deferred members is high at 400,000 or thereabouts. I will have to get my figures right.