Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It gives me great pleasure to speak to this Bill and I commend Deputy O'Dea for bringing it forward. As he said, he has covered certain items in it.

In the six minutes I have available before passing over to my colleague, Deputy Mary Butler, I wish to raise a number of items.

The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar, is very familiar with pensions because he had a hand in the undermining of pensions benefits in the past five years, particularly in his role as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport when he brought forward the State Airport (Shannon Group) Act 2014 and section 32 therein. It was the first time a Government legislated for the reduction of benefits in a private pension scheme, the Irish airlines superannuation scheme or the airport pension scheme. It was probably the most unjust of the injustices done to any pension scheme member, and I speak as somebody who worked in the pensions sector for 15 years before entering politics. Long standing service members lost 60% of their pension entitlement. Retired members, people of 70 or 80 years of age, lost six weeks of their annuity. It was all for selling the stake in Aer Lingus. The company was shown a roadmap of how to increase its pension deficit with a view to getting permission to wind down the scheme. That roadmap has been followed up to now. During debate on the Social Welfare Bill 2016, the Minister of State, Deputy Joe McHugh, was in the Minister's position as the Minister was not present for that part of the debate. One of the striking features of that Bill was the fact that it contained nothing about private sector pensions in real terms.

I am trying to think of any other Government - many mistakes were made on pensions - that did more to undermine pension provision than the previous one. Deputy Willie O'Dea has mentioned the more than €2.6 billion taken out of people's savings by way of the private pensions levy. Then there was the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013 which was brought forward by the then Minister, Deputy Joan Burton. A number of the items included in the Bill before us now were amendments that were voted down on Committee Stage of previous social welfare Bills. That is the unfortunate position in which we find ourselves.

One element of this first occurred in the pensions section of the State airports Bill, whereby scheme members could be moved unilaterally out of their pension scheme without their permission. It does not matter what their benefits were, how long they stayed in the scheme or how much they have paid into it. They can be moved unilaterally out of their scheme into an inferior arrangement, that is, from a defined benefit arrangement to an inferior defined contributions scheme. That happened to 15,000 people in the airport pension scheme. They were moved out without their permission. Section 2 of the Bill brought forward by Deputy Willie O'Dea provides for the right to appeal. If the majority of members disagree with such action, they would have the right to appeal. We would like to go a step further and provide that they could stop it, but at least an appeal would go to an independent authority. This is something that was proposed in an amendment on Committee Stage of a previous social welfare Bill and it was opposed by the previous Government.

In other countries that are more concerned about the preservation of people's pension rights, a company would not be allowed to wind down a scheme unless it met a 90% funding standard, that is, unless there was money available to pay out to the scheme members. Deputy Willie O'Dea has covered a number of items, particularly regarding how we calculate the liability. The current situation is nuts and it must change. It is absolutely crazy. My main concern about what has happened in the last four or five years is that we have given every employer with a defined benefit pension scheme a roadmap to wind down the scheme. This Bill would redress that somewhat and go some way towards fixing it. I would like us to go further and to go further with redress for people, such as the 15,000 workers in the airport who, for the sake of €342 million which the previous Government trousered through the sale of the State's stake in Aer Lingus, lost up to 60% of their pension benefit. We saw what happened to the workers at Waterford Crystal who had to go to the European court. My colleague will cover that issue.

This Bill is a start in undoing some of the actions taken over the last five years. I favour going further. My colleague, Deputy Willie O'Dea, has produced other legislation to provide for banning any private pension levy in future. It would prevent any future Government imposing such a levy. We intend to continue on this course of trying to protect workers' and pension scheme members' rights and trying to ensure that unscrupulous employers will not remove people's pension rights and the benefits they have built up over time. I ask the Minister to consider what the situation would be in the public service, and I include all the Members in that, if somebody approaching retirement and expecting a retirement pension of €40,000 is told within weeks of his or her retirement that the pension will be €12,000 per annum or less, even nothing in some instances.

Double insolvencies happen. Companies become insolvent and wind up. In those instances the scheme has to be wound down. The Bill provides that if a company is solvent it would have to get permission to wind down the scheme. I would like us to go further on this matter, but this is a start. I hope the Bill passes Second Stage and that colleagues across the House can work on strengthening this legislation, providing more protection and rowing back on some of the retrograde steps that were taken over the past five years.

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