Employer organisation IBEC has criticised the "mess" successive Irish governments have made of pensions policy, arguing that the current administration's inaction on the 'priority order' was hard to fathom in the wake of a European ruling on pension protection.
Brendan McGinty, director of industrial relations and human resource services at IBEC, said the current rate of defined benefit (DB) scheme wind-ups – which he said stood at seven per month at the end of last year – was only set to accelerate in future. "Against that backdrop, the failure of the government to take practical measures to slow the rate of scheme closures, or to ameliorate the worst effects of scheme closures, is appalling", he said.
McGinty noted that, contrary to assurances from the government, recent legislation to reshape the Pensions Board into the Pensions Authority failed to address the order. Discussing the retention of the status quo, he added that members with modest pensions would "pay a heavy price for the failure". "The injustice of this situation is unquestionable", he said.
IBEC, together with unions and the country's pension and actuarial associations, agreed last year on details of a revised wind-up order that would cap the size of a pensioner's benefits on closure, aiming to target a minimum level of income for all – regardless of status.
The current 0.6 per cent levy on pension assets is set to end next year, but were the government to opt for a pension protection arrangement similar to Germany's Pensions-Sicherungs-Verein or the UK's Pension Protection Fund, it is likely it would be funded by income from the industry.
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