Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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488. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will set out in tabular form the number of defined benefit pension schemes whose closure has been notified to the pensions board in each year since 2008 and to date in 2013; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34221/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Defined benefit (DB) pension schemes are required to notify The Pensions Board when a scheme enters into a wind up. The duration for the disbursement of scheme assets in a wind up can vary and The Pensions Board monitors the process. The total number of DB pension schemes who have completed the wind up process and whose closure has been notified to The Pensions Board since 2008 is 333. The breakdown by year is as follows:

The number of DB schemes has been reducing over many years: at December 2012, there were 933 DB pension schemes, down from 1,200 schemes in 2009, 1,500 in 2003 and just over 2,500 schemes in 1991.

The persistent funding difficulties of defined benefit (DB) schemes, due to increasing life expectancy and the financial downturn, have been well recognised and employers, unions and trustees have been making strenuous efforts to protect the viability of their schemes. This decline in numbers of DB schemes in Ireland is replicated in many other OECD countries.

Numerous measures have been taken to assist the sustainability of DB schemes over the last number of years.

The Funding Standard for DB schemes was suspended in 2008 following the downturn in the financial markets to give trustees and sponsoring employers adequate time to assess their schemes and consider a response to improve the funding position. The reintroduction of the Funding Standard was then delayed on a number of occasions, pending changes to legislation which were designed to help trustees respond to these challenges.

The changes introduced over a number of successive years, included making provision for trustees to restructure their schemes, introduced measures such as the sovereign annuity to assist schemes improve their funding position and gave increased regulatory powers to the Pensions Board.