Dáil debates

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Prospects for Irish Economy: Statements (Resumed)

 

4:45 pm

Photo of Shane RossShane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Donnelly and we will take five minutes each.

I note the Minister's jibe about opportunism. Sometimes I wonder whether the Government could have taken a lesson from those whom it accuses of opportunism and taken certain opportunities on various occasions when it could have during this short Dáil, especially in light of the story that broke yesterday on the report on pensions. The Government decided to introduce the pensions levy more than one year ago. I suggested - it was an opportunistic suggestion but a practical one - to the Taoiseach that the way to get rid of this levy was to take the money out of the industry rather than the fund members. The Taoiseach said that it was a good idea, that the Government would look at it and that it was always keen to hear constructive suggestions. That sounded reasonable to me and an entente cordiale developed between the Government and the Opposition which was welcome in a time of national emergency. What did the Taoiseach do with that suggestion? Eventually, it found its way to a committee. That committee took considerably more than one year to report, but it reported yesterday. It found exactly the facts as enunciated in this House more than a year ago - that is, that the industry was ripping off members of pension funds.

The report echoed something found out by George Lee more than a year ago in a programme he presented entitled "Future Shock", which found once again that the industry was ripping off pensioners. Instead of acknowledging this at the time, those in the Government decided that there was a big pot of money, amounting to €80 billion, and that they would put their hands in it and take money off pensioners at a rate of 0.6%. If the Government is serious about not being captured by industries such as the pensions industry, it would have acknowledged at the time that investment managers, bankers, lawyers, auditors and brokers had their hands in this pensions pot. The Government might as well have put its hands on these actors rather than taking the money from pensioners in the way it did. The naked figures from the report yesterday are startling and illustrate to the Minister, to me and to others that although there is a crock of gold in the pensions industry, it is all being taken by the top dogs in that industry, and this is continuing. There is a crock of gold, but for some reason the Government is captured by those in the industry and is taking no action whatsoever.

Investment managers are possibly the most overpaid group of people in the country and they are being paid for doing something which they do extraordinarily badly. Pension funds in Ireland have had the worst performance in the world in the past decade, yet pension funds continue to be ripped off. One figure from the report yesterday stated that an average person putting €250 per month into an occupational pension fund would get, over 30 years, a return of approximately €10,000 if there were not so many people dipping into that pot. Instead, such a person gets €6,900 per annum. The difference is going to the greedy fat cats by whom this Government and successive Governments have been captured.

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