Results 7,521-7,540 of 8,235 for speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It is a Government matter and this is a Government policy. It is a pension policy matter. The fact that we continually refuse to talk about the tax relief is a bad sign that it might not stand up. We are talking about the State and how we plan for the future of the population. In respect of constantly talking about tax relief and saying that the commission cannot talk about it - we could...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Yes.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 4: In page 11, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “Report on universal pension 6. The Minister shall, within six months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas on the introduction of a universal pension, which shall include— (a) detailed research and modelling on the potential introduction of a...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 7: In page 13, lines 13 and 14, to delete “with investment management providers”. Amendment No. 7 seeks to raise the fact that the practice of using external asset managers for State investments has left us open to portfolios where there may be significant human rights and environmental risks. Amendment No. 8 seeks to amend section 9(2)(a)(ii) of the...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 8: In page 13, line 28, after “digital” to insert “and accessible”. I will withdraw the amendment in light of the Minister’s elaboration.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 10: In page 15, line 1, after “governance,” to insert “gender equality,” Amendment No. 10 seeks to amend section 11 around the membership of the authority board by providing that one of the competencies which the Minister would seek is in gender equality. In my earlier contribution, I outlined how this is the part the State has got wrong....

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: While I appreciate the gender balance issue, gender equality expertise is the piece that is explicitly being sought. When we talk about these representative bodies, the member would, of course, be a member of a board and would have to operate for the good of the board. The question is about that expertise, however. We know there is an expertise that comes from having engagement with a...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: We are really into an extremely serious issue then because it is State money. It is public money that is being given to individuals, and if it is being given to those individuals to invest in schemes that invest in arms, the Minister is out of line with regard to our national legislation on cluster munitions. She is out of line in that regard because it prohibits direct or indirect...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: My concern was whether we had effective mechanisms to ensure compliance, but the message is it is not State money so we are not bound by anything. Can it be invested in fossil fuels?

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Okay, but I would like clarification. The Minister said it is not State money and not to do with us. I would like clarity on whether there are going to be safeguards. They are very basic. I have a wide range of environmental, social and governance issues I think the State should be tracking, but we actually have legislation in respect of cluster munitions and fossil fuel investment.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Can I ask for confirmation that the provisions of the cluster munitions legislation and the provisions of Fossil Fuel Divestment Act will be among those measures that are reflected in the safeguards? I have read the section. If we are talking about the Paris Agreement and these international obligations, I assumed that our national legislation would also be reflected. That is what I am...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 11: In page 15, line 1, after “management,” to insert “economic and intergenerational equality,”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 12: In page 15, to delete lines 4 and 5, and substitute the following: “(a) one shall be appointed by the Minister upon nomination by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 14: In page 15, between lines 5 and 6, to insert the following: “(b) one shall be appointed by the Minister who is a representative of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, and”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 15: In page 20, line 13, after “experience” to insert the following: “, including expertise and experience in compliance with relevant domestic and international legal obligations,”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 16: In page 28, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following: “(4) The Authority shall on an annual basis lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a record of consultants or advisors engaged under subsection (1) in the preceding financial year and the purposes of such engagement.”. Amendment No. 16 would insert a new subsection into section 31...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 18: In page 28, after line 36, to insert the following: “(4) For the avoidance of doubt, the Authority may not engage persons to provide services where such services are related to decision making in respect of individual entitlements of contributing participants or employees.”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 19: In page 29, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: “(c) the investment strategy or investment decisions carried out under this Act,”. Amendment No. 19 seeks to amend section 33 to provide that within the obligations of the chief executive to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts, he or she would be required to give evidence...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I am looking at the two pages to which the Minister referred. There are approximately four lines that relate to any of the ethical issues I have outlined. There is a section in which we can choose to set out clear investment criteria and rules, which supposedly will apply. We are hearing a contradictory argument from the Minister. On the one hand, she is saying this is none of our...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Senator Burke has made a constructive proposal. I put in an amendment explicitly requiring that when board members come before the Committee of Public Accounts, investment policies and strategies should be part of the committee's remit and should form part of the discussion. That amendment was not accepted. Sadly, the Committee of Public Accounts will not be able to track these issues.