Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not take up too much time.

When is a property right a property right? Is it a property right when you are a retiring politician who is entitled to walk away with your pension untouched regardless of what disaster comes our way? Is that a property right? Is it a property right when a person joins an organisation like Independent News and Media newspapers as a copyist at 16 years of age and works right through to the age of 65 expecting that he or she will be able to retire with some level of comfort but someone comes along and takes half of it away and leaves the person in poverty having worked all his or her life? It is billionaires who do this. The owners of profit-making organisations leave such people in poverty. It is relevant to the Department of Social Protection because it will have to pick up much of the tab as these people end up going to community welfare officers to be able to fill their tank with a bit of oil for the winter.

It is disgusting that these companies can do these things. It is disgusting that they can declare a pension scheme insolvent today based on today's share values. What about holding back and seeing whether those shares will improve over time?What about saying that perhaps the scheme does not need to be wound up today or turned into a defined contribution scheme? We are constantly told we need to consider the long-term. It is amazing how a pension scheme can look to the short-term and change from being a defined benefit to a defined contribution scheme purely because it suits the scheme. I make no bones about the fact that I have some experience of this because one of my pensions has change to a defined contribution scheme. I have some idea of what is involved.

As the Minister with responsibility for this area, I ask him to consider the overall private pension system in this country. There are too many small pension schemes with too many unqualified trustees listening to highly qualified financial companies telling them what they can and cannot do. There is a major problem with pensions and I ask the Minister to get a grip on the problem because it needs to be grappled with now before people in every pension scheme in the country are people are on the breadline.

I extend my sympathies to those that have been hit in Aer Lingus and Independent News and Media. It is an outrage. We sold Aer Lingus and gave the money to Europe, but left the pensioners with nothing.