Q&A

The Dutch bank and the internet: I heard a news report on the radio yesterday about a Dutch bank that will be soon starting up in Ireland for internet-only banking. The report mentioned that there will be an interest rate of about 3 per cent on current accounts.

I was only half listening, but do you know the name of the bank, and did I hear the interest rate correctly?

Also, can you point me in the direction of a web resource that lists comprehensively the different banks operating in Ireland, the interest rates they pay for savings/charge for lending, and their bank charges? When doing a web search, I could only find UK bank comparisons.

Ms NW, Dublin

The bank you heard mention of earlier this week was the Dutch co-operative bank Rabobank, which has become the latest entry to the Irish market. As you say, it is offering an internet-only distribution channel for its products - something along the lines of Northern Rock, which has been selling in the Republic for a number of years.

Rabobank already has some operations in Ireland, including the former ACCBank, which it acquired from the State in 2001.

However, RaboDirect is not offering current accounts at all to Irish customers. The 3 per cent rate to which you refer is the interest it is offering savers on its demand deposit account, which, to be fair, is still the market-leading rate at the moment.

In terms of web listings of banks operating in the Irish market, their rates and their charges, I can't say for certain whether a comprehensive one-stop shop exists. I find that www.finfacts.ie tends to be good on who is offering what rates on which products. As to charges, your best bet is probably the site of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (Ifsra), which conducts a series of surveys on the cost of products across a range of financial services.

Pensions (again)

Your column is, as ever, a source of hidden information and a beacon of hope. My case is somewhat similar to M.S. last week.

I took voluntary redundancy in 1989 after 22 years, mainly because I was having great difficulty throughout the 1980s in raising a family of five and keeping my wife at home.

I did not pay into a pension fund. The financial institution that I worked for paid all pension contributions with the promise of retirement on two-thirds pension (I would not have needed to leave if they paid this money to me). They were going through difficult times in the late 1980s and were glad to let me go. The parting was amicable.

I suffered an injury about three years ago, which has greatly reduced my work rate. I wrote to my former employer, not the trustees, more than a year ago inquiring as to the pension contributions made on my behalf. They did not answer my letter.

I did get an acknowledgement to a follow-up letter - from a secretary saying that her boss was on holidays.

The institution involved is now one of the most successful financial companies in the world. My family are now reared and I just earn enough to live. The redundancy agreement package had nothing on pensions. However, I vaguely remember signing something that debarred me from claiming any further entitlements.

My children are in great health and all working in our booming economy. My wife has also returned to the workforce and is full of vitality and happiness. What are the chances of a little pension nest egg quietly growing for me when I reach the age of 65? Or do I quietly suffer the vicissitudes of the monetary system like your previous questioner, Enron employees etc?

Mr JH, Dublin

Leaving aside for the moment, the rudeness of any institution ignoring a perfectly valid query from a former employee, the key thing to remember is that pension entitlements depend not on something as ephemeral as memories of a stressful situation such as redundancy (even voluntary) more than a decade ago, but on the rules of the scheme.

As luck would have it, I received a number of responses to last week's piece, including one from Pensions Ombudsman Paul Kenny.

He stresses that the rules of any particular scheme are the determinant when it comes to entitlements.

"Often, before preservation was introduced by the Pensions Act 1990, the rules of some schemes did give an entitlement to benefit to someone who left the employment through no fault of his own - redundancy being the most often-quoted example," he says.

"It is just possible that he might have an entitlement under this heading, and equally possible that it might have been overlooked, or not set up.

"If there is an entitlement, failure to honour it may be grounds for the man to complain. Everything depends on the scheme rules and the circumstances of leaving, so the first port of call is the rules."

In a case like yours, where you were in the gold standard - membership of a defined-benefit occupational scheme that paid a guaranteed proportion of your pay on retirement with the company bearing the full burden of the contributions to fund such an annuity - it makes even more sense to pursue fully your rights.

It could be, in the days before the 1990 Pensions Act, that you did sign away your entitlements or that they were not preserved under the rules of the scheme, but there is no way of knowing without consulting the scheme rules.

These should be available from the company or the pension fund trustees.

Bear in mind that the rules may have been amended since the time of your employment.

It is the rules that were in force at the time you left the company that determine your rights.

Insurance inquiry

You and other journalists state repeatedly that people who invested after-tax income in insurance bonds have nothing to fear (shades of George Orwell).

But Bríd Munnelly, in last week's paper, says that the onus will be on investors to prove that they have no tax liability.

The assumption seems to be that the Revenue can impose draconian penalties on innocent people who can't produce an audit trail for monies collected in deposit accounts perhaps 20 years ago and built up into a lump sum for investment.

Mr DF, e-mail

It is true that the onus will be on the investor to show that the money they have used to invest in single-premium life insurance products comes from taxable resources. I'm not sure how else you would suggest it is done.

This is the same process that applies on any revenue audit on inquiry. The Revenue are not out to fleece the ordinary taxpayer. The cases they will pursue will involve significant sums and the absence of evidence that money has been properly registered through the tax system.

Revenue records should indicate the extent to which income has been declared, and most people tend to keep some personal financial records, if not necessarily a comprehensive audit trail going back 20 years.

Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail to dcoyle@irish-times.ie. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice. Due to the volume of mail, there may be a delay in answering queries. All suitable queries will be answered through the columns of the newspaper. No personal correspondence will be entered into.