Ms Patricia Murphy:

The possibility of taking sums of money from the fund was not within the scope of the report. I do not have been any information on it.

With regard to the regulatory structure and who asks questions about occupational schemes, this is the responsibility of trustees who manage the schemes. They work with the employers and they must ask the questions of the providers or advisers. In the case of the individual, the individual takes on the burden and queries the intermediary or adviser he or she is dealing with.

The schemes are regulated by the Pensions Board and providers are regulated by the Central Bank.

In response to the question on commission, we looked extensively at rates of commission throughout the report. We looked at how often this arises and found it was less prevalent in occupational schemes. In defined contribution schemes that are managed by the life assurance sector, commission is prevalent in 39% of policies and costs can vary, with initial commission ranging from 1% to 20% for up-front commission, and renewal commission ranging from 1% to 5%, averaging out at 2.8%. Commission on funds averages out at 0.5%. Commission is much more prevalent in individual arrangements and the up-front commission in this instance was 25% generally, with commission of 1% to 5% on renewal or recurring policies and a trade up-front commission of 0.5% on larger arrangements. Commission is a higher cost in the individual arrangements.