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

I want to deal with the pensions issue primarily but first I wish to make a few points about the operation of Shannon Airport itself. Yesterday I had the privilege of spending the day in Ennis courthouse with peace activists Niall Farrell and Margaretta d'Arcy who were before the court for breaching airport by-laws and who faced the criminal charge of allegedly interfering with the proper use of the airport when they went onto the runway in September 2013. During the course of the trial yesterday the defence presented very compelling evidence which proved that Shannon Airport is not being used in a proper manner and is in fact a key strategic hub and part of the US global military operation, facilitating the movement of over 2 million US troops to Iraq, for example. During the course of the trial, defence expert Dr. Tom Clonan made the point that he had met representatives of Hezbollah who had remarked on the airport in County Clare and spoke of their disappointment with the Irish Government in that regard. What is going on there is not only wrong for the people of the Middle East; it is also exposing Irish citizens, at best, to hostile scrutiny and at worse, to danger by making them targets. In fairness, the judge was very strong in his summing up yesterday. He told the authorities at Shannon Airport that he recognised the seriousness of the matters raised in the court. He said that it beggared belief that this would be treated as a criminal matter and that the authorities at Shannon Airport should deal with it themselves. The peace activists were sentenced to two weeks imprisonment, suspended if they agreed to certain conditions. We all know that Margaretta d'Arcy will not be agreeing to those conditions and will probably end up back in jail. The point that came across strongly was that the Government and politicians generally have ignored this issue, as have gardaí but conscientious citizens will not allow it to be ignored. We can call Shannon Airport whatever we like. We can reconstitute it, as this Bill does, but as long as it operates as a cog in the US war machine, it will never be a proper airport. We must deal with that issue.

To turn now to the most controversial aspect of the Bill, that is, its impact on the IASS pension scheme and specifically the provision which allows workers to be taken out of that scheme without their agreement or consent. As workers have said, the Bill removes all existing safeguards. I must declare an interest here - I am a member of that pension scheme having been an employee of Aer Lingus. I am aware that the Minister justified this in the Seanad on the grounds that it was allowing employers to take their members out of the scheme without being constrained by the fact that it was a multi-employer scheme and that they could negotiate with their members on that. However, that avoids the key problem here, namely that negotiating with and hearing the views of the members of that scheme has been hugely problematic. We saw that clearly with the expert panel and its total lack of engagement. When this Bill was before the Seanad, which was prior to the expert panel producing its report, the Minister said that it would be hard to imagine that the expert panel would not deal with existing or deferred pensioners. In actual fact, that is exactly what it did. The expert panel excluded existing pensioner from its adjudication.

The deferred pensioners have highlighted very clearly the problems that exist. The Pension Ombudsman does not represent them on this issue, nor does the Pensions Board. The industrial relations bodies are precluded from dealing with them under current legislation and the companies will not deal with them. The trustees are on record as telling them to go to the unions because they have all the strength while the unions are telling them to talk to the trustees. This group of people, numbering over 5,000, do not have a voice in the process. To add insult to injury, their colleagues in the UK and US who worked with them under the flag of Aer Lingus will have all of their pension rights secured but this group will not.

The deferred pensioners have made the point that this provision in the Bill is unprecedented in that it would allow two solvent companies to wind up their defined benefit pension scheme without fulfilling the minimum funding standard. In effect, it replicates a wind-up which is precisely what the Minister claims he is trying to exclude. That is a real difficulty. People also object to the fact that this legislation is being rushed through just before the recess, as happened with the Social Welfare Bill before Christmas which also impacted on peoples' pensions, despite the fact the problems with this scheme have been well known for some considerable time.

The Minister made a number of errors this morning in his opening statement. First, he said that the scheme was now closed to new entrants which is not strictly true. What has happened is that the employers are refusing to allow new entrants to the scheme. There is nothing to preclude that from happening other than the fact that the employers have chosen not to allow it. More importantly, the Minister has said at every stage of the debate that the problems with the scheme are primarily the fault of the workers.

See this speech in context