€17m to plug colleges’ pension holes

Taxpayers plugged a €17m hole in the pension funds of University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin last year.

Another €15m is set aside by the Department of Education to pay for pension deficits in some of the five older universities this year, but these are likely to be just the beginning of much larger long-term liabilities.

The previous government allowed the State take responsibility from 2009 for any shortfalls in pension schemes for the five older universities, after they transferred funds worth almost €1.4bn from their closed schemes to the National Pension Reserve Fund.