Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister says it is regrettable that the CRC made this decision. I call it bizarre, sinister and highly suspect. It just does not add up. If our concern is to have any meaning whatsoever, the only instruction we should be issuing to the CRC is to reinstate the scheme until comprehensive issues involving the decision to wind it up can be investigated. It does not add up. If one looks at the scheme, it was very well funded. A deficit of €2 million is very little. There were breaches of the Pensions Act. The trustees could have had and lawfully did have nine months to come up with an alternative funding plan. As such, why was a decision taken 18 days after the actuarial assessment? There are serious questions about some of the assumptions applied by Mercer in relation to the scheme. The report which was given to the staff has been redacted in many parts so that we cannot even have an accurate assessment of the actuarial advice that was given. There seems to have been bizarre and questionable behaviour and I urge the Minister to intervene to hold people to account and not just to look at alternatives now. He should halt it, get it back to where it was and hold people to account.

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