Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, last weekend announced that her Department is initiating a study with the Pensions Board and the Central Bank on the level of pension charges and expenses associated with different forms of private pension arrangements. She is determined that employers and members of pension schemes should get value for money. The Government launched that study because of the concerns about the level of charges that are applied to schemes and the lack of transparency around some of those charges. The study will look at the charges in defined benefit pension arrangements, given some 220,000 people are in such schemes, and also at the charges in defined contribution schemes, given some 260,000 people are in those schemes. It will also examine retirement annuity contracts and personal retirements savings accounts, and will include a survey of the providers and the consumers of pension services.

It is important that people in schemes know the charges that are being paid and what they are getting for those charges. The study will provide comprehensive information on the categories of charges applying across the range of schemes. We expect that initial results from that study should be available by about December and the results will then inform the decisions that Government will take in respect of the action that will be taken on the pension schemes, including the issue of administration charges.

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