Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not pretend that I am as au faitwith this issue as other speakers. It came to me very late. It strikes me that the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has faced something of a Hobson's choice in this regard. Like Senator Darragh O'Brien, I have known the Minister for a long time. If there had been another opportunity to go in a different direction, I do not doubt that the Minister would have been quite satisfied to have taken it.
We need to deal with the cold hard facts. This pension scheme has a deficit of almost €800 million. In the past, the administration by the pensions industry of some pension funds in this State was a scandal. The case of the Waterford Crystal workers eventually ended up in the European Court of Justice. The court's decision, which I consider to have been fair, meant the State paid. That was the outcome. The State cannot keep paying for everything. There are always competing rights. In this case, there is competition between the rights of people who have retired and those of people who are working. There were competing rights in the Waterford Crystal case. I knew quite a few people involved. In that circumstance, there was competition between the rights of people who had retired, who were fully paid, and those of people who were working, who practically got nothing. That was not fair and that was not correct.
I do not know anything about the expert group. I do not know whether the members of the group are experts. I assume the people who have been employed to conduct this work have been doing it in a fair, open and impartial manner. On that basis, I note that the existing members of the workforce have voted in favour of the position the expert group came up with. I fully expect Aer Lingus to vote in favour of it at the extraordinary general meeting. It would be colossal for a deficit of €500 million to be wiped. I hope and expect that everything associated with this occurrence has been done to the satisfaction of the Pensions Authority and the Minister.
It is sometimes helpful to come to a conversation like this cold. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say at the end of the debate. Sometimes we cannot see the wood for the trees. One can be sucked into a portion of a conversation that one is not capable of leaving behind. The numbers in question are so large that it puts the whole Irish Water debate into the ha'penny place. It is a multiple of the amount of money involved in Irish Water, albeit on a once-off occasion. I look forward to the Minister's contribution at the end. I know this is a difficult circumstance for some people. Like many Senators - I assume this also applies to Deputies - I have been receiving multiple e-mails from people who are affected by this. Nobody wants to be affected by it. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.