Siptu wants defined pension ‘crisis’ dealt with

There is a crisis in the State’s defined benefit pension schemes which has serious implications for workers’ retirement incomes, Siptu’s biennial national delegate conference has been told.

Siptu vice president Patricia King told delegates at Dublin’s Mansion House this morning that information from the Pensions Board revealed large numbers of defined pension schemes were going out of business, while the vast majority of those remaining were closed to new entrants.

Ms King said at the start of 2013 there were 990 defined benefit pension schemes operating in the State. But she said that by the end of the year it was expected that this number would have fallen to 770.

“And only 11 of those schemes will be open to new members” she

said. “That is most defined benefit schemes will be closed to new members.

That is a really bad place for a pension fund to be”.

Reprising the agenda for the four day conference Ms King said the full implications for workers pensions would be debated tomorrow morning.

Ms King also shared information on numbers in relation to the State’s minimum wage.

She said there had been just 1,050 inspections of regulations and conditions governing the minimum wage last year, “and 53 per cent of them were found to be in breach of regulations”.

She said inspections of working conditions and regulations were something that must be comprehensively addressed.