Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

This legislation is being put forward as a positive measure to allow members of a scheme to be open to a certain procedure in the event of a wind-up of the scheme, in terms of access to information. The High Court is proposed as an accessible mechanism for members of the scheme. The point of the amendment I have tabled is that experience has not shown that the High Court can play such a role. In the case of determinations by the Pensions Ombudsman, it is already possible to appeal to the High Court but such appeals are rarely pursued because they involve a cohort of elderly citizens. The people concerned are 72 years old on average. It does not appear suitable to me to ask them to pursue a costly High Court procedure.

It would be preferable for members of the scheme to be given access to the State's workplace industrial relations machinery. We have discussed this previously in the context of the Social Welfare and Pensions (No. 2) Bill 2013 and it was suggested that the issue might be dealt with in the guidance notes. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation was asked subsequently about the matter and has indicated that he is examining the possibility of opening up the Labour Court mechanism. It is not possible at present for people to access the Labour Court if they are not currently employed but there must be some way around that. We raised this issue initially more than six months ago and more could be done to address it.

The equality issues for pensions were discussed by the Equality Tribunal and there are surely routes other than the High Court that could be accessed by workers in dealing with such issues.

Trustees are already in law obligated to consult members but the groups of existing retired staff and deferred members do not have a recognised collective voice. That must be addressed. The Minister indicated she is not prepared to discuss individual schemes, but with the Irish aviation superannuation scheme, the retired pensioner group has seen a proposition of €7 million to be taken from them in restructuring. The expert panel met these people and indicated it could not deal with the group because it has no status, despite their living standards being on the line. These people were sent on their merry way and the expert panel made no recommendations and did not address the scenario. There must be a much better mechanism than what exists now and even what is being proposed in the amendment. Access to the Labour Court would be a better alternative, along with some mechanism for recognising groups.

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