An independent audit of the Educational Building Society staff pension fund is to be carried out immediately because of concerns about the administration of the fund by Irish Pensions Trust Ltd.
The concerns centre on "incorrect" pension payments of just under £80,000 made between June 1993 and January 1995, and other perceived administrative errors. The payments were made from the staff pension fund to a retired manager who was a member of a separate fund for managers.
The auditors, Ernst and Young, discovered the incorrect payments in 1994 and brought them to the attention of Irish Pensions Trust then and in the two succeeding years before the money - £78,776 - was returned to the staff fund in September 1996.
Interest on the payments - £31,969 - was not paid back to the staff fund until July 1997.
Another error involved a sum of £25,594 plus interest which had to be transferred to the staff fund in 1996 for life assurance cover.
The pension fund trustees were unaware of the errors until 1997, when a trustee elected by the staff members sought additional information on the accounts and details of the Ernst and Young findings were disclosed.
In a statement yesterday IPT admitted: "In this particular case some errors were made." It said that the errors "were rectified at no cost to the fund".
The decision to commission an independent audit, which is to be backdated to 1991, was taken yesterday at a meeting of the pension fund trustees. The EBS staff fund is valued at about £17 million and has 280 members, working at EBS headquarters and branches.
EBS yesterday expressed its concern about the errors, but stressed that there was no question of improper behaviour by EBS management or the trustees, and that the fund was secure and in surplus.
The staff trustee reported her concerns to the Pensions Board, which is the statutory body responsible for safeguarding the interests of pension fund members.
She said she was told to take independent legal advice when she alleged that material information was withheld from her as a trustee.
The Pensions Board declined to confirm yesterday that it was investigating the administration of the EBS fund, in line with its policy of not commenting on individual cases.
IPT is the biggest pension fund management company in the State, administering about £900 million of pension funds for employees of many large companies, including the staff fund of The Irish Times.
The union representing EBS staff, MSF, has advised its members to request a copy of the annual report on the pension fund for 1996. Section 7 of this report stated that in March 1997 the trustees became aware that Ernst & Young had written to IPT in August 1996 regarding the preparation of the accounts for 1995.
"At the time of its receipt and for six months thereafter, IPT failed to advise the trustees of the existence of what the trustees consider a significant letter," the report states.
The auditors informed the trustees that these errors did not have any adverse impact on the financial position of the fund. But a decision was taken that the trustees would report to the members each year on the performance of IPT as administrators.