Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sure the Minister is well aware that the Government has signalled that the issue would be addressed in the Bill. It is not being done so for other reasons and thousands of workers are facing loss of pension benefits as a result of the Government's failure to do so. IBEC has pointed out that this is very unfair to the workers involved. As it stands, where a defined benefit scheme is at risk of being wound up, people already in receipt of a pension from it have absolute priority, leaving those members who have not yet reached retirement age with only a fraction of the pension they expected. A group of them were in here yesterday, one of whom told us that he had paid for a pension of €20,000 and is now looking at €8,000. He was devastated, as were a number of others. A worker of 64 years of age who is months from retirement might be left with only a fraction of what they would have expected. They pointed out that although the chief executive, Jeremy Masding, has taken a 2% cut in his contribution to his pension, he is not taking a salary cut.

When people put money into pension schemes, I do not think they saw it as a form of speculation yet we have seen plenty of evidence where people who have speculated in the banking area have been paid in full. We must listen to the chairman of Permanent TSB, Alan Cook, say "we have an obligation to save the bank and we have to take corrective action at this time." We save banks but we do not save people. Does the Minister think this is fair?

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