Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The figure could be as high as €30 billion, a significant amount of money. I can understand people's concerns about their pension schemes. Pensions are well regulated under trust law and the Pensions Acts, but there is scope for a tightening of regulation as has occurred in other areas, such as in the financial arena where regulation was not as tight as necessary.

Defined benefit schemes are private investment funds. While it is difficult for people to watch the funds into which they have been contributing running into difficulty, the Government's first commitment is to the State pension. It must be remembered that the schemes in question are private schemes. However, the Government is considering a number of proposals and issues.

The European Commission is conducting an assessment of the impact of the ruling in the Robbins case. At the time, it was satisfied that Ireland was in compliance with all of the then regulations.

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