Ireland’s Republican Party Fianna Fáil has revealed that it will propose legislative measures to stop solvent businesses closing their defined benefit pension plans.

According to the Irish Independent, the party’s spokesperson Willie O’Dea has drawn up an amendment to the Pensions Act 1990 to give the Pensions Authority the power, under certain conditions, to prevent the winding up of pension schemes.

Rather, the amendment would mean that prior to the closure of a scheme, the Pensions Authority would be able to force a company to deal with up to 50 per cent of its deficit first.

O’Dea told the Irish Independent: “That would help pensioners get their entitlements and stop some worrying practices which were often profoundly unfair and risked leading to hardship.”

Towards the end of last year, the party also voiced the need for meaningful increases in the state pension, proposing a €30 increase into the weekly pension of low to middle-income earners over a five year period.

“There has to be a meaningful increase [in the pension] this year that would reflect the commitments we made in our manifesto,” Fianna Fáil’s leader Micheál Martin said.

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