Seanad debates

Thursday, 16 June 2011

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2011 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages

 

The Minister of State stated clearly in his contribution yesterday, if I understood him correctly, that trustees would be given a free hand such that they could amend the structure of their pension schemes after they had paid the levy. That indication is being given to scheme trustees and to employers, who sponsor a large portion of defined schemes in particular which are expensive currently because there has been such a dip in equity and property markets. Many of what would have been seen as the base scheme assets have been hammered over the last three or four years. The average return - there is not an annualised return - on a managed fund in a ten-year period is approximately 1.6% according to the IAPF. The imposition of the levy will take out nearly half of that growth, which is minimal. We are now saying to the employer or the trustee, in many instances they are one and the same, that we understand that they cannot afford this levy and so are inviting them to hammer the scheme, to reduce the benefits under it, thereby reducing the funding requirements of it simply so that they can pay the levy.

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