Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The aim of these amendments is to implement a recommendation by the OECD in a report that was made to the Minister. It is not something that we in the Opposition dreamt up. We understand the problems some companies have, but there were companies that set up DB schemes and dangled them as a carrot to get employees by stating, 20 years or 30 years ago, that employees would be guaranteed a certain income on retirement. It was quite attractive - in fact, so attractive that only a few years ago there were 2,500 such DB schemes in the country.

The Minister mentioned that companies are being bought, sold and whatever else. Any company that bought a company in Ireland knew the liabilities and knew the issues. In fact, the recent strike proposal from the ESB unions related to the labelling of the company's DB scheme as a defined contribution, DC, scheme to make the ESB more attractive either for privatisation or to access funding on the international market. Companies do not want that type of future liability on their books and they are trying to get rid of such schemes. All employers in the capitalist market aim to make as much profit and squeeze as much out of workers as possible, and this is another such occasion. It is right and proper that we ensure in this Bill that employers have a liability to the pension fund that they, along with employees, have set up.

Obviously, there are dangers. That is why my party has used the OECD description of a healthy sponsor.

It states healthy employers could be defined as those with positive net revenues. That means that a company will not collapse if it makes the contribution that it should make to bring the pension fund, as in the case of my amendment, up to the 90% funding standard.

See this speech in context