Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, I wish to refer briefly to a matter Deputy Boyd Barrett raised this morning. I explained to him that the pension reforms we introduced to protect people's pensions in defined benefit schemes in Ireland were set at a level of €12,000 but it was 100% protection. The Deputy indicated that he believed people in Waterford Wedgewood had benefitted far more generously. I have not been able to get all of the data but I will explain my point to him.

Our pension protection system, while not exactly the same as in the UK, is quite strong. Bearing in mind that most defined-benefit pensioners in Ireland would also have a social welfare contributory pension and benefits package of up to €14,000, the equivalent of our PEPs regarding Waterford Wedgewood is €5,195 per year, which is less than half of the Irish figure. The average accrued benefit for deferred scheme members in January 2014 was €4,263. The provisioning in Ireland is on a significantly higher scale. The Deputy finds it difficult to believe anything good about Ireland and is full of negativity.

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