Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I admire Deputy Crawford for raising a pensions issue that is of relevance to the man he mentioned, although perhaps not to the debate on this Bill. The legislation before the House has been introduced to try to support workers in some way. Different things are happening with pension schemes at present. The situation has changed drastically in recent months. The number of insolvencies has doubled in the past year. The number of pension funds that are in deficit has increased in line with that. If they are currently meeting their liabilities they will benefit from this, as will any other insolvent companies that wind up pension funds that are in deficit. In addition, companies that are restructuring their funds to try to protect and save them will benefit from the other changes in this legislation. For that reason, it is important that such changes are made. A number of groups have asked for those changes. The workers want to ensure that the order of priorities is changed. It is fair to say that nobody wants to be seen to be taking anything from older people. Members should bear in mind that the increases are not going from the order of priorities.

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