Waterford Crystal pensions: Well deserved

The Cabinet will today consider proposals to resolve the pensions crisis faced by former workers at Waterford Crystal. 

This point was not easily reached and the workers had to go to the European Court of Justice to have their rights vindicated.

Five years ago, the Luxembourg-based court ruled the State was in serious breach of an EU insolvency directive which protects employees in the event of employer insolvency.

The court ruled that Ireland had failed to implement article 8 of the directive which obliges the State to protect the interests of employees’ and former employees’ pension entitlements if their employer becomes insolvent.

Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of workers right across Ireland face poverty when they retire because defined benefit pension schemes were mismanaged to the point that they are no longer solvent.

It is hard not to think that a class action taken on behalf of these workers might not succeed.

If the shoe was on the other foot, if the workers owed the banks or the pension industry the money, it certainly would.