Breeda Moynihan-Cronin
Question:53 Mrs. B. Moynihan-Cronin asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the progress, if any, made on the question of integration of pensions in the context of the forthcoming pensions Bill. [10351/99]
Written Answers. - Pensions Legislation.
I have expressed concern on a number of occasions in the House regarding the process of integration, most recently during the passage of the 1999 Social Welfare Act.
In this year's Act, I have provided that any reduction in occupational pensions in payment, as a result of increases in the social welfare pension, will be prohibited. The effect of the amendment is to prohibit occupational pensions in payment from being reduced in any one year from the level obtaining in the preceding year. This prohibition was recommended by the Pensions Board in its report on the national pensions policy initiative, NPPI.
While there is little, if any, evidence that any pension scheme rules permit an actual reduction in the amount of occupational pension in payment as a result of increases in the social welfare pension, this provision will act as a preventive measure to ensure that such a rule is not, in future, introduced in a pensions scheme.
However, I am also concerned that, while integration under the rules of most schemes is carried out on a once-off basis at the point of retirement, in a small number of pension schemes integration continues on an ongoing basis after retirement under a total pension income approach, which is provided for in the rules of these schemes.
I have decided that this post-retirement integration should best be examined in the context of a review of the indexation of occupational pensions generally and I have requested the Pensions Board to prepare a report on this issue. I will consider the board's report and revisit the specific issue of post retirement integration in the context of a Pensions Bill, which I hope to publish later this year or early in 2000.