Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One of my concerns when I introduced the provision to access AVCs was that once access to AVCs was made legal creditors, particularly banks, would force people to access them to pay off debt. This is exactly what the Senators have said. The same considerations apply to any more general access to pension savings. The considerations would be on the one hand to protect the contributor so that he or she would have an adequate pension but on the other hand to protect the State because if people in contributory pension schemes were to withdraw their contributions they would not have benefit and the State would have to pick up the tab later in the form of non-contributory pensions.

The best way to approach this is to await the publication of the OECD study which the Minister for Social Protection has sought. Among the terms of reference is to advise on whether access to pension savings would be appropriate and to lay out the terms of the debate. When that report is published in the next couple of months we may return to this subject and see what can be done.