Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to object in the strongest terms to this Bill. I welcome the new Minister and I regret he has come to the legislation at such a late stage because it is controversial. We have had a great deal of discussion on it. It is unprecedented for a Government to pass legislation to strip away the private pension rights of employees, to which they have made contributions over many years. The Government has stripped away the rights of people who took early retirement from the airports and SR Technics on the basis of pension commitments made to them at the time, without consultation. The legislation provides incredible powers to the trustees to undermine people's benefits. There are difficulties in Aer Lingus and a solution needs to be reached to fund the pension scheme, which we all want. Talks are under way to achieve that but this legislation has been railroaded through at the same time, which demonstrates incredible bad faith on the part of the Government in the context of reaching a fair resolution to the issue.

The OECD recommended that where there are single insolvencies, namely, where the pension scheme is insolvent but the employer is not, such schemes should not be allowed to be closed unless the employer ensures it is 90% funded. We tabled an amendment on Committee Stage to insert the recommendation in the Bill to at least give some protection to the existing members and deferred members that will be affected but that was refused.

Government Members should be aware of what is happening here and of the unprecedented nature of what is being done to people's private pension rights. This is not right. We have fought the Bill every step of the way because we think it is wrong that people who paid for entitlements on the basis of a commitment from their employer should have them stripped away at the last minute without consultation. I urge Government Members to think about that and about whether they are prepared to stand over that when they vote on the Bill.