DAA denies making pension offer

THE DUBLIN Airport Authority yesterday denied that it had made a €55 million offer to trade unions to try to resolve a long-running dispute relating to a deficit in its pension scheme.

In a statement issued to The Irish Times, a spokesman for the DAA said: “Contrary to recent media reports, DAA has not made a €55 million offer to trade unions in the ongoing pensions talks.

“DAA’s position with regard to the outcome of the current pensions negotiations is fully aligned with Aer Lingus.”

He said that any other suggestion was a “ gross misrepresentation of the facts.

This statement contradicts the contents of a memo circulated by Impact to members on Monday. The memo was issued following what were described as lengthy negotiations with the DAA that day.

It stated: “The company is committing some €55 million (up from €32 million) to solving the problem outside of increasing pension contributions by up to €4 million per annum and unquantified costs of making shift and other composite pay pensionable.”

The memo included other technical and specific details of the DAA’s alleged proposal. It also included a note stating that the DAA wanted a pensionable pay freeze for a period and grievances in relation to medicals and retirement age for the Airport Police and Fire Service sorted out as part of the package.

It closed by saying that the unions had agreed to take these alleged proposals away for consideration and “hopefully respond next Thursday”.

If such a deal were agreed, DAA workers could secure pension payments of 78 per cent of their final salary. These talks relate to the Irish Airlines Superannuation Scheme (IASS), which had a deficit of €748 million at the end of May.

The IASS is jointly operated with Aer Lingus and SR Technics. The companies and trade unions have been in negotiations for some time at the Labour Relations Commission in a bid to find a solution to the deficit problem.