Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. This is an issue I am familiar with and it has been going on for a long time.

We would very much like to see a solution to this issue, but I do not think that solution will be a legislative one. The relevant Labour Court recommendation called on the employer at the time to establish a pension scheme. The State is not the employer of CE scheme supervisors and, therefore, it was not our responsibility to establish a scheme. Of course, had there been a scheme, it would have been expected that the supervisors would pay into it, but they did not. That is the crux of the issue. Anybody who pays PRSI is entitled to a State pension, and CE scheme supervisors are entitled to one. However, we are not in a position to give an occupational pension to people who did not pay into an occupational scheme. If we open that door, there will be no end to it. Public service pensions only go to public servants and occupational pensions only go to people who paid into them. If we opened that door, there would be no end to the numbers of knock-on claims. Perhaps we can come up with some solution that is not a pension, and we are open to that.

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