Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

The Minister contends I am raising a wider issue; I am not. In two years time, the Minister will be faced with this same issue. As he rightly says, if the market has not recovered he will again force people to buy at low interest rates annuities that will be wholly unsatisfactory. I raise the point that what is good for the self-employed and has applied to the self-employed for a considerable period is just as good for people in defined contribution schemes which are reaching maturity.

If the Minister did want to raise the wider issue, Deputy Burton has raised it, namely, what happens to people in their 60s who have a pension fund. It is the existing pensioners who have priority. Someone very close to retirement age is no more secure than someone aged 20 in the status of a defined benefit pension scheme that is in difficulty. Those are the wider issues we would like to see addressed. However, I am sticking strictly to the context of the forced purchase of annuities.

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