Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 221: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, further to Parliamentary Question No. 77 of 19 April 2011, regarding the pensions insolvency payment scheme in respect of a company (details supplied) if a decision has been reached on this issue; if not, when may we expect a decision and the reason for the delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34787/11]

Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 232: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the position regarding pension payments for workers of a company (details supplied); if a decision has been reached on this issue; if not, when can we expect a decision; the reason for the delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34788/11]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 221 and 232 together.

The Pensions Insolvency Payment Scheme (PIPS) offers annuities for sale to defined benefit schemes where the scheme is winding-up and where the parent company is insolvent. Applications to participate in PIPS have been received from two Waterford Crystal schemes.

In the past week the detailed information relating to Waterford pensioners that is needed for the pricing process under PIPS has been sent by the Waterford schemes to my Department. This information has been forwarded to the NTMA as the agency responsible for arriving at the price for entry to PIPS. The NTMA has been requested to calculate a sum which represents the actuarially assessed cost of providing pension payments to the relevant pensioners (the PIPS 'price'). The NTMA will now carry out the detailed calculations needed for all the pensioners in each of the two schemes. Once I receive the results of the pricing process from the NTMA I will then forward the PIPS prices to the Waterford trustees for their consideration.

Prior to finalising their applications, the Waterford trustees submitted a proposal relating to a number of aspects of their applications to the Department of Finance. That proposal raised technical issues in regard to the pricing of Waterford's applications; an examination of these matters was carried out by officials of my Department and by the NTMA. Following this examination, I approved the trustee's proposal and agreement was reached with the trustees on the approach to be adopted in arriving at a price for the two schemes. The time taken to deal with this matter was in part due to the complex nature of the issues involved.