Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is true that technically it is the trustees who decide on the closure of a defined pension scheme. However, let us live in the real world. They do it in consultation with the employers. Effectively, it is the employer who closes it. Anyone who knows anything about the situation knows that to be the reality. I would not bring an amendment before this House that would result in companies closing down and jobs being lost. I emphasised that when I was making the case for the amendment but the Minister was talking to her officials. It is obvious she did not hear what I said.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh averted to it but I am talking about a case in which a company is very much solvent. The section or the amendment can be drafted by the Government as it sees fit to set out the criteria to apply. An Irish company might be only a small element of a huge, profitable multinational. Is it right that it can unilaterally decide to close down a defined benefit pension scheme even though the company is awash with money given it is only a small part of a much bigger multinational operation? I think a Labour Party government was in power in the UK when this was done, and the sky did not fall in.

The Minister did not address the second amendment concerning the right of a group of pensioners, if they felt they were adversely affected by a decision of trustees to reduce benefits to different classes, to some sort of independent appeals mechanism in which they could have confidence.

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