THE Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, expects pensions provision to become a major issue in the current round of talks for a new national agreement.

At a formal presentation of the ESRI report yesterday, the Minister said the pension system needs to be developed so that pension benefits bear a "reasonable relationship" to income levels before retirement.

He admitted that the trend to less pension provision is "worrying", but insisted that Ireland is on time to work out the best possible, solution. "We are moving towards an ageing population later than other European countries, so we are in time to put mechanisms in" place," he said. For this reason the

Department and the Pensions Board had created the new National Pensions Initiative.

While the initiative will not report finally until next year, the ICTU agrees that pensions will now form a part of the negotiations on a programme to replace the PCW. An ICTU statement yesterday said that as voluntary provision of pensions had not led to an increase in coverage, "mandatory provision must be on our agenda". This would involve employers not already providing schemes to do so.

The ICTU is also focusing on the provision for those not active in the jobs market. The ESRI report shows that only 12 per cent of those not economically active have ever been in a pension scheme, while only 0.6 per cent of these people are at present contributing to such a pension scheme.

"The average income for the elderly in 1995 amounts to only £95 per week," the ICTU statement said, and national economic resources meant it was an appropriate time to improve pension planning for the future.