Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Those in the Irish trade union movement have gone to extraordinary lengths to seek to protect members' interests, but one must bear in mind the difficulty that there are three different categories of member. What we have tried to do here is to balance the interests of the three categories of member in a difficult situation.

I note that Deputy Shortall suggests in one amendment that anyone with a pension over €60,000 would lose everything greater than that amount. This was discussed in the Seanad and on Committee Stage. The advice from the Attorney General is that any action reducing anybody's entitlement to a pension must be proportionate and fair. I came up with a scheme whereby those with a pension of up to €12,000 are not affected - I gave the information that the median pension in Ireland under DB schemes is €11,000, which means the vast bulk of pensioners would not be affected; those on a pension of between €12,000 and €60,000 would contribute up to 10%; and those on a pension above €60,000 would contribute up to 20%. In a restructuring situation, if one can manage to make the scheme viable, it should be possible to protect pensions to a higher level than that, and that is the object of what we are doing. Where those in a DB scheme have made higher levels of contribution for a higher level of pension, I am advised by the Attorney General that in law it would be disproportionate to take everything over a certain level from them. I advised Members of that on Committee Stage. Such a proposal would not stand the rigors, for instance, of the FEMPI process which the country has been through. There must be proportionality.

I am not in a position to accept the amendments. As I stated, I understand Members' motives in seeking to protect everyone's interests, but we are talking about schemes that have a difficulty and that we are trying to help restructure, and in the event of a double insolvency, we are offering State protection of the interests of members of such schemes. That is what the Bill is trying to do. In that sense, it is consistent with the long discussion on the issue that has gone on in this country for up to 20 years without any changes having been enacted, while increasing numbers of schemes have closed or wound up.

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