Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

——was to make the Government aware of the difficulties of the individual funds. Hopefully, as the markets pick up, the position can improve for people in that regard. As I already indicated, we are allowing employers more time to come up with their funding proposals to ensure that their pension funds can get back into a solvent position. The Pensions Board will allow up to ten years for a fund to recoup any losses that it would have incurred. Normally, we give a fund 12 months to come up with its proposals but we are now giving them 18 months. We are trying to facilitate employers, in the case of these defined benefit schemes, in determining how they will be able to protect their workers into the future.

There is no need for panic. Having said that, the markets are difficult and the pension funds are facing challenges. We are actively working with pension fund managers and the Pensions Board and have held a number of meetings on the matter.

Much of the information contained in the memo was not new. I flagged the matter last week at the launch of the report of the Pensions Ombudsman but I only received a couple of paragraphs in the business pages. Pension fund managers also pointed out the difficulties that have arisen. I appreciate that once something is stated in a Government memo, it takes on more gravitas. Concerns were caused by the leak rather than by any interviews conducted subsequently because our aim with the State pension is always to protect vulnerable people. In the short term, people do not need to be overly concerned because no pension has gone bust and no pensioner has been left without an investment.

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