Queries to pensions ombudsman rise

THE new pensions ombudsman, Paul Kenny, has seen a massive increase in the number of queries to his office over the last seven months.

The figure has grown from just four in March to 39 in September and to date he has had 21 in October.

Many of these have been referred back for disputes resolution. About a dozen former pension board and winding-up cases are still live and, of the 114 files, 10 are closed, as being outside terms of reference, or solved, “one way or another”.

“As of this week, about 35% of complaints are in the public sector - that's down from about 50% a month ago - but many of these are representative cases, where an individual has been chosen to represent a body of people with the same complaint.

“More than half the complaints we can identify are already retired. The balance is made up of active members (20%) and deferred beneficiaries 28%. That's not 100%, there's a couple of would-be members, who claim they have lost preservation rights through maladministration.”

Mr Kenny said that his office has not carried out a geographic analysis of the complaints, but at first glance the percentage arising in Cork, and in Munster generally, appears to be small.

He was speaking at the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) Southern Region annual lunch which was sponsored by Thomas Crosbie Holdings (TCH).

IAPF chairman Gerry Ryan said the association has been pressing ahead with work in the area of simplification of the current pensions system with a view to making it easier to understand and less costly to administer.

“Governance issues, on which IAPF published guidelines recently, remain of concern and will again be monitored. In addition, developments arising from the EU pensions directive will be reviewed during the year.”

Mr Ryan said the funding standard was also an issue of concern for his members, and pointed out that the issue had received much media attention in recent days.