Seanad report: Aer Lingus pilots were acting wrongly in using their pension fund to buy shares in the airline company, Sheila Terry (FG) said.
The Pensions Board had expressed concern about this, and she wondered why there had been no ministerial response.
The relevant Minister - presumably Séamus Brennan - should come to the House and say whether employees should use their pension fund to buy shares in their own company.
"I think it puts at risk the pension fund, and in this volatile situation which we are dealing with at the moment in terms of Aer Lingus and Ryanair, we could well end up with these employees losing their pension fund or a large part of it."
Ms Terry urged that emergency legislation be introduced to protect the pension funds of employees generally.
Acting Seanad leader John Dardis (PD) said he agreed 100 per cent with Ms Terry.
It would be extremely dangerous and would prejudice the pensions of the people involved to invest funds in the way that had been done in the case of Aer Lingus.
"Anybody will tell you that in investment you must spread the risk. It might be very plausible and laudable, but I think it would be extremely dangerous."
He noted that the original proposal along these lines had gone off the table very quickly.
Ms Terry said the Government was standing by and letting this happen. Mr Dardis replied: "The Government has no influence whatsoever on what they do with their pension fund. It's their pension fund."
Ms Terry said it probably suited the Government to do nothing and to allow the pilots to do what they were doing.
The Privacy Bill as drafted was "bordering on dangerous" and some legal people would say that it was unconstitutional, Kathleen O'Meara (Lab) said.
Bringing it forward had not been accompanied by in-depth consultation or examination of its implications.
Its provisions were a matter of serious concern to many in the industry. That in itself might not be enough to merit great concern on the part of legislators, but the concerns that had been expressed were broad and widespread.
Ms O'Meara suggested that a mechanism be devised whereby the Minister for Justice could hear members' views on the proposed measure.
Mr Dardis said Ms O'Meara had made an important point: that while the provisions of the Bill might be of concern to the media "they might not be of concern to us". However, he accepted that the matter should be teased out
This would normally be done at the second stage debate, but if there was some way of having consultation before that, he would see if that could be done.