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

That is not adequate at all. The reason this difficulty has arisen is that, under existing procedures, trustees already must inform everybody. Notifying people of something is not the same as engaging or negotiating with them. This is the difficulty. will use the example of the Irish Airlines Superannuation Scheme, IASS, because it highlights well the point being made in this regard. At the heart of this issue, existing and deferred pensioners stood to lose an enormous chunk of the income to which they had a reasonable expectation on retirement, based on having paid into a pension for all their working lives. The retired members have made the point that €500,000 per month is being taken out of the local economy in cuts to that group alone. The people who made that decision were existing employees, trade unions, the trustees and everyone on the expert panel. The people who voted on that decision were members of trade unions in employment who were not even members of that pension scheme. The very people whose pockets have been pilfered of this money did not have a voice at the table and did not have an input into the process. I did not hear anything in the Minister of State's reply that tells me they will have a input in the future either. It simply is not good enough to suggest that someone should go to the courts or whatever when people are retired and have limited income anyway. I wish to hear in concrete terms what is going to be done about this.

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