Irish Life staff to stage stoppage next week

Staff at Irish Life are to stage a 24-hour stoppage on April 12 over the company’s plans to close off the defined benefit pension scheme to future accrual from June 30.

Unite trade union, which represents the workers in question, claims the scheme has never been in deficit “and currently has a surplus well in excess of €200m, with assets of around €1.1bn”.

Overall, the pension scheme has 3,000 members, with Unite representing approximately 1,000 of those.