John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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164. To ask the Minister for Finance the measures he is taking to replenish the private pensions funds of which the Government has repeatedly accessed over the past five years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4760/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Pension Scheme Levy was introduced in 2011. For the years 2011, 2012 and 2013 the rate was 0.60% of the scheme assets. For the year 2014 the rate was 0.75% of the assets and for the year 2015, the final year of the levy, the rate was 0.15%. Under the legislation, 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 or insurer to decide whether, when and how the levy should be passed on and to what extent, given the particular circumstances of the pension schemes for which they are responsible.

The position is that the equivalent value of all of the money raised from the stamp duty levy has been used to fund the wide range of measures introduced in the Jobs Initiative to protect existing jobs and to help create new jobs and the Initiative has been a success in this regard.  The measures introduced include expenditure measures such as the Jobbridge and Springboard schemes, as well as a number of tax and PRSI incentives such as the reduction in the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% for the tourism and hospitality sectors and the halving of the lower employer PRSI rate. 

While the pension fund levies have ceased, I have no plans to repay the pension fund levy collected. The value of the funds raised by way of the levy have been used to protect and create jobs and this has helped to create the improved financial and economic position of the State. Taxpayers to whom the impact of the levy may have been passed on by the chargeable persons responsible for the payment of the levy (the pension scheme trustees etc.) will benefit from the changes which I began in Budget 2015 and which will continue in future Budgets to reduce the tax burden on low and middle income earners.