The Opposition was disappointed at the Government's failure to produce a Pensions Bill before the current Dail session ended.

"A growing band of people will be waiting in the long grass for you and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern," Mr Tommy Broughan, the Labour spokesman on social and community affairs, warned the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr Ahern. Pensioners from the Irish Press group, the Ford motor company, Tara Mines, Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta, health board ancillary staff, nurses and teachers all faced "a major problem in pensions provision".

The vice-president of SIPTU recently said 65 per cent of workers in the private sector had no pension, Mr Broughan said. Despite growth in jobs in the private sector "hundreds of thousands of workers" were without pensions.

The Minister said his responsibility was to deliver social welfare payments to 850,000 people each week. The proposed Pensions Bill was an "extremely complex piece of legislation," Mr Ahern explained.

The Bill provided a framework for the introduction of the Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA). "PRSAs were recommended by the Pensions Board . . . to facilitate increased savings for pensions and extend supplementary pensions coverage overall, especially to people who have no such cover at present."

The objective was that 70 per cent of the workforce, aged over 30, would have supplementary pension provision, the Minister said.

The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness's pension trends would be "monitored by my Department" in consultations with the Pensions Board - allowing the role of PRSAs to be evaluated. The Bill also provided the establishment of a Pensions Ombudsman.