Mr. Tony Collins:

My colleague, Mr. Nugent, has had vast experience in the whole industrial relations process from his time in the ESB. He has clearly pointed out that if there is an underfunding situation, there was ways to deal with it. During my working life, I had to pay additional contributions to the scheme when there was an underfunding situation. This was done so that the scheme could recover. That was reversed once the underfunding issue was dealt with. Underfunding is an issue that can be dealt with by the existing workers. There has never been a situation in the ESB where an industrial relations agreement has affected retired workers. That agreement in 2010 was the first time the incomes of retired workers were affected by an industrial relations agreement on pensions. Before that, it was dealt with by the employer making additional contributions to the scheme or the employees making additional contributions, perhaps for a temporary period of time. That is how the underfunding was dealt with. I reiterate what I said earlier: there is no underfunding issue currently in the ESB scheme. There may be underfunding in other schemes, but there is certainly none in the ESB at the moment.