Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

No. I hope the Minister gets around to reading what some of the economists have to say. That is a mild comment compared to some of the analyses on the various websites.

I wish to refer to the transfer of the pension liabilities. The Minister should listen to me for a moment. Deputy Ardagh is sitting behind the Minister and he has some sensible questions to ask about the Bill. We are taking over liabilities. I thank the Department for the list of liabilities I received. It took a lot of persuasion to get it. I understand the Minister had the list until approximately lunch time. He could not decide whether to release the pages to me. The sum of €3 billion is listed on the liabilities. Currently, the National Pensions Reserve Fund does not stand much above €15 billion, depending on what the current valuation is, because it has fallen a lot. Those liabilities are one fifth of the National Pensions Reserve Fund.

Before the emergency budget and last year, moving those assets on was considered a smart move because the assets can be taken into the State assets to improve the financial situation somewhat. However, it is absolutely ridiculous to have that happening with no attempt at analysis. A reasonable question can be asked. FÁS has €328 million of pension assets and €683 million of pension liabilities. Some of the institutions listed have a much lower liability. In other words, their deficits are not nearly as big. The liability of two other institutions - Trinity College Dublin and the National University of Ireland - is less than 50% funded. This is a very important issue concerning the financial responsibilities and liabilities of this country and in itself is deserving of detailed and serious discussion. We need to know why this happened. Although funds suffer from the general downfall in the markets, as a national parliament we are entitled to ask, and are simply responsible for asking, questions about what has occurred. What the Minister is doing may well be very worthwhile and I am sure the staff in the various universities and public bodies will be delighted, but we must ask how we reached this point. Who was asleep on the job such that pension liabilities were allowed to become so under-funded? It is absolutely stunning.

With regard to other elements of the legislation, I do not have enough experience of the insurance market to know why the Financial Regulator now wants to introduce regulations dealing with the appointment of an administrator in the case of a life insurance business. We do not have too many life assurance companies in this country. This measure did not come out of nowhere. The Minister states the provision has no particular purpose but it is legitimate to ask what are the various life insurance companies in the State, their current liability and whether the Minister has been advised of the picture in respect thereof. The measure provides a mechanism of redress should one or more of the companies get into difficulty.

I note changes proposed in respect of the liability of the Financial Regulator in regard to prospectuses. Why is this the case? The Financial Regulator carries an advertisement on every financial product stating it is registered with or licensed by the Financial Regulator. Why does the Minister seem to be resiling from this? My question is legitimate and the House should be given the opportunity to address it in a longer debate.

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