Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Government is aware that wider and longer term pensions issues require a comprehensive and co-ordinated response. Following the conclusion of the successful consultation process last year, we have been considering options to address the challenges facing our pensions system which were raised in the Green Paper process. These issues relate to social welfare pensions, the sustainability of our pension system generally, the adequacy of current provision and other complex issues around regulation, public sector pensions and retirement age.

In the past year, the economic environment has changed considerably and we need to ensure that decisions we make in the pensions area are robust enough to withstand new and unprecedented challenges. The recently published McCarthy report and the report of the commission on taxation both considered pensions issues, albeit from a different perspective. In bringing forward its proposals for pensions provision in the future, the Government will have regard to the issues raised in these reports as well as the options proposed in the Green Paper and the follow-up consultation process.

In the meantime, we have been responding to the immediate difficulties facing employees, particularly those in defined benefit schemes whose companies and pension schemes faced difficult situations as a result of collapse in equity values and the economic situation. The Government has moved quickly to protect people's entitlements through the measures announced last December and the amendments passed in the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2009. These measures include the establishment of a pensions insolvency payment scheme, a reordering of wind-up priorities, provision for restructuring of pension benefits and stronger regulation with regard to remittance of pension contributions.

It is entirely appropriate that the Government should take the time to arrive at sound decisions about the future of our pension system given the potential of such decisions to significantly impact on this and future generations. Our objective is a system which will deliver an adequate retirement income for all which is at the same time affordable and sustainable for the State and those who sponsor and provide pension schemes.

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