Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Hi Mick,

I am an employee of Pfizer, Ringaskiddy, for 22 years. The proposed changes to the pension that the company is trying to bring in would lead me to have a shortfall of approximately €286,338. I am 51 years old, and to maintain the current value I have on defined benefit, an outlay of €15,849 would be my cost per annum. I have managed to save for my kids' college fees and am privileged to do so. However, it was the company who afforded me this and with no discernible reason want to take it away. With 16 years left to retire, some €300 per week is the incurred cost to me as a result of the company's corporate greed.

Hi Mick,

When I joined Pfizer, Ringaskiddy, the company prided itself in taking care of our pension. The current position by the company has left me and others to reappraise our current outgoings. The real cost to me as an employee is €390 per week. The current profits the company enjoys as a result of Pfizer Ireland delivering quality products on time and at a competitive cost can only be quantified in the billions. Corporate greed at its best.

These are two text messages I received this afternoon from workers in Pfizer in Cork, a company that is trying to wind down and shut down its defined benefit scheme, a move which would adversely affect 1,000 workers. These two workers speak for hundreds of others. The second text message is entirely right when it speaks of "corporate greed at its best". Pfizer International made gross profits of more than $40 billion in the 12 months to 31 March 2016. One product alone produced by the workers in the company, Viagra, makes the company a clear profit of €1 billion every year. The defined benefit scheme is a fundamental part of the terms and conditions of the workers who are taking industrial action which currently takes the form of an overtime ban to protect their terms and conditions. I support them 100% and anybody concerned about workers' rights will do so also.

In 1997 there were 2,315 defined benefit schemes for employees in the State. By the end of 2015, that figure was down to 503. Ironically, given the source of the Bill, much of the decline took place on the watch of the Fianna Fáil Party. However, we, in the Anti-Austerity Alliance, will vote for the Bill which would make it illegal for a solvent company to wind up a defined benefit scheme when underfunded without the consent of the Pensions Authority. That is positive. It would allow a member of a scheme to appeal if he or she believed the wind-down to be inequitable. That is also positive. We should broaden the scope beyond mere inequity, but we could address this issue on Committee Stage.

I conclude by echoing the point made by Deputy Bríd Smith, which is entirely right. It is necessary to go further. What should be in place in the law of the land is that it is illegal - full stop - to wind down a solvent fund and rob workers in the way Pfizer and so many other companies are attempting to do.

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