IRELAND - Representatives of the Irish pensions industry are meeting with social and family affairs ministry officials today to see if solutions can be found to reduce members' funding pressures under current market conditions.

Jerry Moriarty, director of policy at the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF), said today's talks with government officials are part of the ongoing dialogue concerning green paper proposals launched last year.

That said, members are now very concerned about the constant funding pressure market volatility is having on its regulated accounting requirements so the IAPF is now in discussions to see if reporting pressures on funding standards can be eased in any way.

"We do think there is some concern about the accounting requirement and funding standards, and schemes are going to be struggling to meet funding standards because the state of the markets means they are going to be off track from where they expected to be," said Moriarty.

He acknowledged the pension funds strategies should be designed to deal with market and volatility pressures in relation to the regulator's required funding standards.

The Irish Pensions Board requires all pension funds to state on an annual basis whether their funding positions are meeting its funding standards, and has been working on a report for the government on this subject. (See earlier IPE story: Pensions Board urges trustees to focus on risk)

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