Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The strength of feeling expressed last week and here today about the myriad problems arising in respect of current employees and current and deferred benefit pensioners within the IASS highlights and underlines the hotch potch of policy underpinning pension policy in this country. I suppose it is because of the failure of successive governments to take responsibility for this area and to introduce a coherent pensions framework that we find ourselves in this situation in respect of the IASS and increasingly in respect of so many other schemes that have run into difficulty.

In recent years the State has been spending in the region of €3 billion a year on its principal pension policy, which is to provide a facility for tax relief for people with private pensions. It has been estimated that some 80% of that €3 billion in tax expenditure has been to the benefit of 20% of the highest earners in this country. That is at the root of all the problems associated with pensions here. We have a pensions policy that is highly inequitable, very expensive and benefits the better off. A great many people with very little pension provision for themselves or no pension provision at all are subsidising the better off who have pension pots up to €5 million and beyond in some cases. That is a highly inequitable system and that needs to be tackled.

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