Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

The Waterford Crystal case arose because of a case taken to Europe in the context of what was called a double insolvency where a pension fund was insolvent and the company then became insolvent. Workers, therefore, were caught by a double insolvency and the question arose in respect of the State's liability to protect their pension rights in that instance. The court made findings that the State had an obligation and had failed in its obligation in regard to a particular directive to establish a rate at which such protection could be offered. In terms of how that would be addressed, legislation was passed last year to address the gap that was identified by Europe. The mechanism is now in place in terms of future proofing to ensure there is some protection for workers but, obviously, a number of companies, including Waterford Crystal, are caught in that gap between the directive and last year's legislation. Given that it is the subject of a court case, I cannot comment on it except to say the court case is ongoing but the predominant group is the workers n the Waterford Crystal case. A small number of other schemes are in the same situation with a much smaller number of workers.