Pensions victory - Let down by our system

It is wonderful that the European Court of Justice has found in favour of former Waterford Crystal workers in a case taken to recover pensions feared lost when their employer collapsed.

Hopefully, the ruling will have practical consequences for the tens of thousands of private sector workers approaching retirement whose pension prospects would not be so very grim if the 1980 EU directive on pension fund protection had been enacted here as it has been in Britain.

That these workers had to take this case points to a failure in public administration that is all but unforgivable and, as is usual, there will be no consequences for those who decided that we did not need the protection offered by the directive. That they will never need that protection may explain that unwise decision.