Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not repeat the points made so well by my colleague. I will deal with one example relating to the Revised Estimates of the Department of Social Protection. I sincerely hope the Department has enough money in the kitty to deal with a root and branch review of pension governance in this country because we are on the cusp of a serious problem in that regard. The Central Remedial Clinic is an example of what is likely to happen to the remaining defined benefit schemes in this country - a huge problem that will, sadly, end up on the Minister's doorstep. Ireland's pension industry is made up of 150,000 schemes with over 730,000 active members holding more than €80 billion in investment assets and over 226,000 individual PAS contracts with over €4.6 billion in investment assets. It is absolutely huge but absolutely not transparent and not accountable.

The CRC has been hit by controversy, not for the first time and not for the first time in respect of its pension situation. The Minister will know that in 2014 the departure of the former CEO Paul Kiely cost the CRC €750,000 in pension payments. An attempt was made to cover this up, which led to the resignation of the board. Now we have another pension scandal at the heart of the CRC under a new board and new management. The staff have been treated abysmally and this is important because if the Department, which is responsible for governance, does not intervene I have no doubt it will be replicated by other defined benefit schemes.

In 2013 the interim administrator wrote that he was confident that with the appointment in 2014 of a competency-based board and a CEO through open competition the CRC would be able to move forward to the next phase of what has been a largely successful organisation. This has not happened. The CRC is at an all-time low and the pension fund has been unilaterally closed. Two members are within weeks of retirement, one with over 30 years of service and one with 44 years of service. Now they have no pension and have had zero consultation. How can this happen in an area over which we are supposed to have governance? How can no new pension plan be put in place? Is our governance so poor that this can be allowed to happen? I find it quite astounding.

This needs the intervention of the Minister to tell them to freeze this scheme now and prohibit them from going ahead with the decision pending a serious investigation into what has gone on. The board did not unilaterally make this decision. We have to look at the role of some of its advisers. The same company, Mercer, provided the administration, the actuarial and the consultancy services to the CRC plan and the trustee of the plan, the Irish Pension Trust, is owned by Mercer. Even more astounding, the CRC board decided to hire another Mercer person late last year to give them separate advice from that given to the pension scheme by the previous fellow from Mercer. It is even more worrying that in 2014 the administrator appointed after the board resigned made the point that they were obligated to obtain advice from an independent source that could be relied upon.

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