Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The statutory authority for payments in respect of the Waterford Crystal pensions settlement is in Section 48B of the Pensions Act, 1990. The provision was inserted by the Social Welfare and Pensions (No 2) Act, 2014. While policy responsibility rests with the Minister for Social Protection, the legislative provision makes the payments a charge on the Central Fund i.e. they are not a charge on the Vote for the Department of Social Protection. Payments made directly from the Central Fund are the responsibility of the Department of Finance.

In order to make a payment from the Central Fund, the Minister for Finance has, firstly, to requisition a credit from the Comptroller and Auditor General under the Comptroller and Auditor General Amendment Act, 1993.  Under that Act, the Comptroller and Auditor General has to satisfy himself that the credits sought "comply in all other respects with the provisions of the enactments relating to them." In this case, the relevant enactment is the amended Pensions Act. That Act provides that the Minister for Finance may pay moneys for the purpose of the discharge "of the liabilities of an eligible pension scheme".

My Department was approached by the Department of Social Protection in relation to payments from the Central Fund to former employees of Waterford Crystal in respect of service given under contract, which had not been purchased at the point of insolvency of the company. Before it proceeded to requisition a credit from the Comptroller and Auditor General for the payments, my Department asked the Department of Social Protection to clarify whether the unpurchased service was a liability of the pension scheme at the point of insolvency.  The latter Department has now obtained legal advice, which confirms that unpurchased service at the date of winding up of the Waterford Crystal Pension Fund cannot form part of the liabilities of the pension scheme for the purposes of section 48B of the Pensions Act.