Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 130 of 8 November 2012, if he will provide the information requested; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53658/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I can now inform the Deputy that I have received the information which he requested and apologise for the delay in procuring this information from the covered institutions. The responses I have received from each institution are set out below:

PTSB

I have been informed by PTSB that it has not made any such contributions in the period while it was in state ownership.

IBRC

Since nationalisation, I have been advised that the former Anglo Irish Bank made one payment of c. €150,000 to an employee pension scheme in March 2009 that could be considered to fall outside of normal employer contributions. This payment was made in connection with litigation.

I have been informed that the Bank, in conjunction with its pension advisors, has uncovered no evidence relating to additional payments having been made by the former INBS to their employee pension schemes during the period in question, that could be deemed to fall outside of normal employer contributions.

AIB

AIB (including EBS) has informed me that during the calendar year 2007 it made contributions to its pension schemes in accordance with agreed actuarial funding plans and as required by regulation. Contributions in excess of these were made to address a combination of unscheduled early retirements including ill health related circumstances and the exercise of contractual early retirement rights and amounted to €11m.

The amounts paid to date are:

* The 2012 figure for AIB includes one off exceptional contributions made in 2012, these contributions were made in the form of a transfer of loans to the pension scheme. The gross value of the loans transferred was €1.1bn but the carrying value of these loans prior to transfer was significantly less than this. This transfer has enabled the early retirement program which is required in order to reduce the cost base of the bank by over €200m per year.

BOI

Bank of Ireland has informed me that it has disclosed the additional deficit-reduction contributions paid to its employee pension schemes in its Annual Report. On Page 265 of the 2011 Annual Report in the “Group Pensions Review” section, Bank of Ireland discloses the amounts paid in 2010 and 2011 and the expectation for 2012, as a result of the agreement with staff to reduce benefits payable under the Group Pension review. To date the payments are in line with expectations. These payments are consistent with those disclosed in the 2011 Prospectus under risk factors (page 59).

Prior to 2010 there were a number of smaller contributions made to schemes in deficit, in line with the requirements of the Pensions Regulator in the UK and the Irish Pensions Board, following actuarial valuations of those smaller schemes. The scale of these payments did not warrant separate disclosure in the published accounts.