Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In regard to the points made by Deputy Brendan Ryan, he expressed his concerns about the different people, including the 5,000 people at work who are affected by the different changes and who have decisions to make on the changes proposed by the company and the trustees in respect of the IASS pension fund. I refer also to a very important matter Deputy Clare Daly raised the last day when she made her contribution. Deputy Brendan Ryan went into the same area, so I will address those two points.

In regard to the actions of the trustees of the Irish Airlines Superannuation Scheme, the Pensions Authority has the power under section 18 of the Pensions Act 1990 to investigate the state or conduct of a pension scheme. The Pensions Authority has wide-reaching powers of investigations in regard to trustees. Under section 18 of the Pensions Act, the authority may authorise in writing such and so many persons it considers necessary to be authorised persons to inspect or to investigate on its behalf the state and conduct of an occupational pension scheme. For clarity, I wanted to say that in regard to Deputy Ryan's comments.

The powers conferred on the authority by section 18 of the Act are extensive. They include the power to require persons to provide such information, explanation and documents as may be specified in a notice to enter premises for the purposes of inspecting, copying and-or removing books, documents and records and the power to obtain a warrant from the District Court in respect of entering upon a person's private dwelling.

Section 18(5) makes it an offence for a person inter alia to obstruct willfully an authorised person in the exercise of his or her powers and the penalties attaching to that and the power of the authority to conduct an investigation under section 18. It cannot be exercised lightly and it must be exercised with a view to the possibility of the authority either initiating a criminal prosecution or invoking one or other of its powers.

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