Pensions:The Government should cap its contributions to public sector pensions as part of an urgent review, a senior economist with the employers' group Ibec said in Kenmare yesterday.

Ibec's Fergal O'Brien said that reform of public sector pensions was needed to contain long-term liability to the Exchequer and to make "pay parity" between public and private workers possible. He said that public sector employees should help to fund any pension liabilities which exceed the benefits available to private workers.

The Government should publish regular actuarial analysis of public sector pension liabilities not funded by the National Pensions Reserve Fund, while the next phase of benchmarking should take into account the value of these pensions.

According to Ibec's analysis, the average public sector pension is worth 13.5 per cent of salary more than the average private sector pension. When private sector workers who do not belong to occupational pension schemes are included, the difference rises to 21 per cent of salary, Mr O'Brien said.

"Public sector workers should be clearly informed of the value of their pensions, and monthly payslips should show an indicative value of monthly contribution rates."

Speakers said that the regulatory and institutional environments in which many Irish businesses and banks operated were soon set to change substantially.

Bill Thompson, of EirGrid, said that the introduction of a single electricity market for the island of Ireland in a fortnight's time was "a highly-significant political as well as economic project".

In banking, the Basel II regulations, which come into effect in January, will aim to provide greater stability, said Mary Doyle, of Bank of Scotland (Ireland). However, this would be "at considerable cost to the whole banking community".