Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

When the jobs initiative was announced, the Taoiseach and the Government decided not to publish any supporting documentation on the impact of the €1.8 billion raid on personal pensions. This was a direct reversal of the policy that had been pursued for over a decade, whereby all background papers on revenue matters were published on-line. With other members of my party, I repeatedly asked the Taoiseach to provide briefing material concerning this attack on pensions before putting the measure through the House. On 11 May he said to me "if there is any outstanding information the Deputy seeks, it will be provided for him, because there is not anything secret here." Nothing was provided; discussions were cut short and the measure was forced through the House. It has now emerged that the Taoiseach was informed in April by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, that the levy could have extremely negative impacts. She told him well before the levy was announced that it could incentivise or force some pension schemes to close. She also told him that it would disincentivise retirement savings and have negative long-term implications for pensions policy. A Department of Finance briefing that he received expressed concerns about the solvency of some funds. It stated the policy the Government was considering "could seriously undermine the pensions sector". This extremely serious information suggests the actual cost of the attack on private pensions will be very different from that claimed by the Government. Why did the Taoiseach decide to keep this information secret until after the measure had been pushed through the Dáil?

See this speech in context