Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief as we want to push this matter to a vote. I am sorry the Tánaiste is not here to engage with us but I appreciate the Minister of State, Deputy Humphreys, has come back to the House. While I do not know if it was deliberate, in her brief remarks before she left, the Tánaiste completely missed the point we were trying to make when she said it was a matter for the trustees to decide what the individual distribution is between the active and defined members. Of course that is the case, but they can only decide within the legislative framework that has been put in place. As we proposed in our recommendations, the OECD recommendation is that, in a single insolvency situation, where the company is still profitable despite difficulties in a scheme, that scheme should not be allowed to fold unless it is 90% funded. It was a legislative decision of this Government in the Social Welfare Bill last year not to give effect to that and to bring in legislation where, in a single insolvency situation, a profitable company can opt to fold its pension scheme and, in doing so, there is no protection for the members.

Again, we accept that the trustees are operating within the system but what we are proposing in these amendments is that, at least, we would ensure through legislation there is a minimum level of protection and that the distribution is fairer. I do not understand how anybody could possibly think it is fair for somebody to lose 60% of their pension. We have debated this issue so many different times over the past year. I know there is sympathy among some of the individual Members on the Government side because they have also been contacted by people affected by it. However, in all of the debates we have had, and on the amendments we have put forward to successive Bills in the past 18 months, nobody is able to tell me, and the Tánaiste did not tell me before she left, how it could possibly be fair for somebody on a €20,000 pension to lose €8,000 of that pension. That is shocking and is a direct result of the legislation.

At a superficial level, it is a decision of the trustees, but it is the decision of the trustees acting within the legislative framework the Government has put in place. If the legislative framework were otherwise, the decision would be otherwise, because certain options would be off the table. If they had to protect people according to the minimum protections we have set out here and ensure fairer distribution and fairer protection, then the decision would have to be otherwise. That is the simple fact of the matter.

I was hoping the Tánaiste would respond more directly to the specific recommendations we have tabled instead of just dismissing them and saying the decision has been made by the trustees. That is an abdication of responsibility. As we have made clear in several debates on this issue, we accept there are difficulties with the scheme and that there is a funding problem. This is accepted by Senator O'Brien and Senator Conway, a Government Member who has left the House in disgust at the fact the Tánaiste did not stay-----