Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure if the Tánaiste understood the question or realised the points I specifically made with regard to particular problems with defined benefit pension schemes or my very firm claim that blatant mismanagement of the schemes is under way on a vast scale. It is not just in the companies I mentioned but in many more at the expense of citizens and pensioners. While it may be the case on paper that we have regulation, a Pensions Authority and so on, the point I am trying to make is that this regulation is wholly inadequate.

It is not that there is a crisis in funding. I gave an example to the Tánaiste's colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Varadkar, several weeks ago of a supplementary pension scheme in Aer Lingus where €200 million has sat in cash for two years in a pension scheme. A decision was made to close it but it has not been wound up. People have retired and could be the beneficiaries of that money but they are being denied access to it. Meanwhile, the trustees, advisers, administrators and the management fees are all feeding off the pot which is getting smaller and smaller.

The same names appear across all of the trustees and across the industry. There needs to be an inquiry into this. When are we going to the beef up pensions regulation? When I put that to the Minister for Social Protection, he put me in touch with a very nice man from the pensions section of his Department. He eventually came back to me and said it is very bad form but they are not doing anything illegal. The law needs to be changed.

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