Trade union officials have not ruled out taking industrial action in a dispute with Bank of Ireland over a proposed new pension scheme.

The Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) said yesterday that the row with the financial institution had escalated following the two sides' failure to agree a compromise during talks at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).

Bank of Ireland wants to implement a new scheme for incoming workers that the union says will reduce benefits from the existing two-thirds of salary to between 26 per cent and 50 per cent.

The bank plans to implement the scheme from next Monday, despite IBOA pleas to hold off until the dispute is settled. This means workers hired after that date will be placed on the new pension scheme.

The union is holding a series of meetings with member branches around the State this week.

The IBOA is referring the issue to the National Implementation Body (NIB), the three-man panel set up to supervise the operation of the national pay deal, Towards 2016. Under the terms of the agreement, employers' attempts to alter existing pension rights can be referred to the implementation body.

IBOA general secretary Larry Broderick said the bank's refusal to defer the new scheme's implementation left the union with no choice but to go to the body.

"The failure by the bank to even defer unilateral implementation of the new pension scheme, that will leave thousands of new entrants in relative poverty in years to come, smacks of one of the worst examples of corporate greed and arrogance," Mr Broderick said.

The NIB has no powers to enforce rulings or sanction either workers or employers for failing to observe the national agreement's terms, but its three high-profile members - Dermot McCarthy, secretary-general of the Taoiseach's department, David Begg, secretary general of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) and Turlough O'Sullivan, chief executive of employers' body, Ibec - mean it is considered to be " influential".

Unions at Irish Independent publisher Independent News & Media have also referred a dispute over proposed changes to its pension scheme to the implementation board.

Bank of Ireland has a defined-benefit pension plan for existing workers. A scheme of this nature means that the final payout is guaranteed. According to a bank spokesman, the new "hybrid" scheme is a mixture of defined-benefit and defined-contribution (where staff contributions to pension plans are fixed). He rejected claims that it would result in payouts of between 26 per cent and 50 per cent of salary. "That's not true," he said.

The bank issued a statement saying that new workers who contributed the full top-up amount to the scheme would have the prospect of getting 66.7 per cent of their pay after 45 years of service.

Under the scheme, workers will contribute 2.5 per cent of salary, and the bank guarantees the fund against underperformance. The second, optional element, of the package is a personal investment account that is a defined contribution scheme with the bank matching up to 3 per cent of employee contributions.

Bank of Ireland said the scheme was part of a strategy to attract high-calibre employees and minimise volatility in investment markets, which hits the value of pension payouts.