{"id":236,"date":"2017-07-14T15:27:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T14:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/why-were-key-protections-for-workers-on-defined-benefit-schemes-dropped-from-social-welfare-bill\/"},"modified":"2017-07-14T15:27:51","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T14:27:51","slug":"why-were-key-protections-for-workers-on-defined-benefit-schemes-dropped-from-social-welfare-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/why-were-key-protections-for-workers-on-defined-benefit-schemes-dropped-from-social-welfare-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Why were key protections for workers on Defined Benefit Schemes dropped from Social Welfare Bill?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Today\u2019s Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill is more noteworthy for its omissions rather than its provisions, according to R\u00f3is\u00edn Shortall TD.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Shortall said:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;T.D.s were given the clear understanding in early drafts of the Bill in May that it would deal with some of the enormous insecurity affecting defined benefit schemes. As we have seen from the sudden changes to the Irish News and Media pension scheme, workers on defined benefit schemes remain completely exposed to the whims of employers as to whether or not they will have an adequate pension when they reach retirement age. At the publication of the Heads of the Bill in May, there was clearly a commitment at that point to deal with the problem \u00a0of profitable companies suddenly walking away from pension commitments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At a pre-legislative hearing on June 1<sup>st<\/sup>, officials stated that the Bill would provide for \u201crestrictions on the ability of employers to trigger the closure of a pension scheme without due notice and proper engagement There was a clear understanding the INM scenario would be dealt with.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However, the Bill presented to the D\u00e1il this week does not provide for any such thing. Several Heads were dropped from the Bill. In particular, one of these, Head 12, would have prevented employers suddenly ceasing payments into a defined benefit scheme.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What workers need is legislation to prevent solvent companies walking away from pension promises. What we got is a half-hearted attempt at reform that will do very little to protect workers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Myself and others have tabled several amendments to Social Welfare Bills over the past few years seeking to correct this anomaly for Irish workers and to bring us into line with the protections enjoyed by workers in the UK and other jurisdictions. However, time after time, they have been rejected by Government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yet again, the Department and the Minister in charge of it have failed to provide adequate protection in law for the pension rights of workers and have left them high and dry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>ENDS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">14 July 2017<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill is more noteworthy for its omissions rather than its provisions, according to R\u00f3is\u00edn Shortall TD. Deputy Shortall said: &#8220;T.D.s were given the clear understanding in early drafts of the Bill in May that it would deal with some of the enormous insecurity affecting defined benefit schemes. As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[95,96,70,97],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news","category-press-release","tag-defined-benefits","tag-pensions","tag-roisin-shortall-td","tag-social-welfare-bill"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why were key protections for workers on Defined Benefit Schemes dropped from Social Welfare Bill? - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/why-were-key-protections-for-workers-on-defined-benefit-schemes-dropped-from-social-welfare-bill\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why were key protections for workers on Defined Benefit Schemes dropped from Social Welfare Bill? - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today\u2019s Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill is more noteworthy for its omissions rather than its provisions, according to R\u00f3is\u00edn Shortall TD. 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