Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

Next week is National Pensions Awareness Week. As we will not be present in the House next week, I wished to raise my concerns about it today, as I have raised concerns about this campaign on other occasions. I notice that this year, the campaign to entice or encourage people to take out pensions will be even more aggressive than before and will target people between the ages of 25 and 35. The money available to the Pensions Board has been doubled for this campaign.

My concerns, which I have raised here on many occasions, relate to misleading and false information about tax relief. In addition, people are not being provided with a considerable amount of information relating to charges imposed by operators and the fact that there is no guarantee with pensions and no final outcome with regard to how people's contributions will result in a reasonable pension.

The Government and the Pensions Board should not be providing one-sided information on pensions. They should highlight the downside, namely, the fact that people are gambling with the stock market and that there is no guarantee in respect of their outcome. People are entitled to get both sides of the equation. When the Government promotes such a campaign, it is incumbent on it to highlight the downside of any promotion like this. It should be withdrawn because it is a one-sided campaign, which is unfair and misleads consumers.