Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I can save the Senator a telephone call to the Commission because those calls are expensive nowadays. The directive states:

With the exception of Article 19, member states may choose not to apply this directive in whole or in part to any institution located in their territories which operates pensions schemes which together have less than 100 members in total.

It is quite clear from this, Article 5 of the directive, that we are fully authorised to introduce an amendment if we wish not to apply the directive in whole or in part in certain cases. That is what the Commission would tell the Senator. I am exercising the option given.

Senator Terry insists that I am somehow working for the pension industry in this matter and she continues to talk of a U-turn. People were already allowed to borrow money as individuals, as one-member pension funds, to buy themselves a property or something to provide for their pensions for the future. I have not altered that. If I implemented the directive in full I would remove that provision. Senator Terry argues that I should remove it. We are heading in that direction but cannot fully make that decision yet. Thousands of people — I do not know the exact number — have used the existing law to borrow from the banks in order to buy properties to provide a pension for themselves and their families. Other than suggesting pension funds are a sinister force, Senator Terry has provided no good reason for me to tell people that I need to protect them against themselves.

I see nobody losing on the present arrangement so I am not minded to change it. I will not suggest that people get themselves sorted with pensions and at the same time tell them I am taking away their rights to set up their own pension funds, buy themselves properties and borrow money to do so. The Senator has given me no good reason to stop people from looking after their individual pensions through the purchase of individual properties if that is their choice.

Senator Terry may have an argument on the tax side but that is a separate issue. Tax breaks for this type of arrangement are a bigger issue. On the pension side, in terms of prudence, many people would disagree with Senator Terry. She herself has half made the argument to me. If a member of her family was joining a pension fund, she might be the first to advise him or her to stick with a shop in a shopping centre, an industrial unit or an apartment.

One would be better off doing this than subjecting one's money to the whims of the Stock Exchange where an Elan-type fall might occur and wipe out one's money in a split second. Culturally, Irish people are attached to bricks and mortar and seem to feel safer with property. The Senator has taken me to task for retaining an existing situation. I will not change it without an extremely good reason and a catch-all directive from Brussels is not enough, particularly when it permits me to make an exemption for such scenarios. I have not yet heard a good reason to prevent ordinary citizens from covering themselves for a pension but if I hear an impressive valid reason, I will consider it.