Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will add just a little to what has been said. On a number of occasions Deputy Dessie Ellis raised a question about a particular constituent, but it is impossible for me to comment on an individual case without knowing all the details. I am not in a position to do so.

From what I have seen of the proposals put together over time, whether by the expert panel, the Labour Court or the trustees, somebody who worked for 40 years at the airports or Aer Lingus will recieve a pension in the region of 40% or half of his or her end salary. Even after the cuts being proposed, people will still receive a pension of roughly half their end salary, provided they worked a full 40 years with the company. Therefore, even with the cuts, the pension is approximately the same as what a public servant will receive.

People may have had higher expectations and may have expected to receive a pension of 80% or 90% of their end salary, but people here do not receive such pensions . What they get, if they are lucky, is a pension roughly half of their end salary. That is what public servants receive and when this pension fund issue is resolved, the pension benefits will be in that ball park. Obviously, if a person only worked for ten or 15 years, he or she will not receive the same pension as someone who worked for the full 40 years.

Deputy Clare Daly has suggested today and previously that deferred members should have access to the industrial relations machinery of the State and the Labour Relations Commission. I understand they did have this access, but that it was removed at some point by legislation. I have not studied the issue of deferred pensions in detail and I am not the Minister responsible for labour affairs or enterprise matters, but on the face of it I believe the Deputy is probably correct that members of the scheme with deferred pensions should have access to these mechanisms. There is an opportunity to restore them through the just published Workplace Relations Bill which will bring together the Labour Relations Commission, the Rights Commissioners Service and the NERA. Perhaps this might be the appropriate mechanism to restore access. It cannot be done under the State airports Bill.

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