The Opposition will back a bill for the setting up of private, voluntary pension schemes, although it feels that the legislation does not go far enough, the Opposition spokesman on finance, Tonio Fenech, said this afternoon.

The debate in Parliament is due to start this evening.

Mr Fenech said the PN was in favour of private, voluntary pensions schemes, also known as third pillar pensions. However the incentive which the government was offering to encourage people to take up such pensions - a tax rebate of 15% up to a maximum of €1,000 - was not enough.

Mr Fenech said that a bigger concern was how nothing was being done yet to raise the adequacy of pensions. 

A pension needed to be at least 60 per cent of the national average wage for people not to be at risk of poverty, but the state pension on its own in most cases was still in the region of 45 per cent, he said.

Second pillar pensions - compulsory schemes partly funded by employers - were meant to have made up the difference but no headway had been made yet, Mr Fenech observed.

He said the government should at least initiate a debate on how such second pillar pensions may be introduced.  

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