Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

When the Government came into office earlier this year, we inherited a pensions system that was in crisis. This was reflected in the programme earlier this week. There is approximately a €10 billion to €15 billion hole in certain private sector defined benefit pension schemes. We know some of the demographic reasons that this is the case and some of the trends that are in the system. There is no doubt that the performance of pension funds has been affected by poor investment decisions that were made by pension fund managers who invested very heavily in equities and it has also been affected by pension fund administration charges, to which the Taoiseach referred earlier this week.

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