Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Renua Ireland)
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61. To ask the Minister for Finance the amount paid through pension levy payments; if these have been discontinued; the number of existing pensioners whose pensions have been reduced because of the levy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34986/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The yield from the stamp duty levies introduced in 2011 to fund the Jobs Initiative amounts in total to €2,383 million to end- September 2015. The equivalent of the funds raised from the levies has been used to fund the various tax reductions and expenditure measures introduced by the Jobs Initiative which has been successful in helping to maintain and create employment.

The original 0.6% stamp duty levy on pension fund assets ended last year. The additional levy of 0.15% which I introduced for 2014 and 2015, mainly to help continue to fund Jobs Initiative, will also end after this year.

The chargeable persons for the levy are the trustees or other persons (including insurance companies) responsible for the management of the assets of the pension schemes or plans. The payment of the levy is treated as a necessary expense of a pension scheme and the trustees or insurer, as appropriate, are entitled where needed to adjust current or prospective benefits payable under a scheme to take account of the levy. It is up to the trustees to decide whether and how the levy should be passed on and who should be impacted and to what extent, given the particular circumstances of the pension schemes for which they are responsible.

I have no detailed information on the decisions made by pension fund trustees or others in relation to the passing on of the full or a partial impact of the levy to the current, deferred or former (retired) members of pension schemes. I am not in position to say therefore how many pensioners have had their pensions reduced on foot of the levy.  I am aware, however, that in certain cases where trustees have made the decision to pass on the impact or part of the impact of the levy to pensioners, that a smaller reduction in pension payments over the lifetime of the pension have been made in preference to a larger reduction over a shorter period.