A meeting of IMPACT members hit by the closure of a Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) pension scheme will take place this week to consider their next steps after 93% of them backed industrial action in a ballot. Meanwhile, the union has won access to the scheme’s accounts, and its actuaries are expected to make a report on the state of its funding shortly.

IMPACT has asked its actuarial experts to make an independent assessment of the scheme and test the legal validity of its closure. Management claims the fund is carrying a €2.5 million deficit, but IMPACT believes the scheme is not in deficit to this extent.

IMPACT official Ian McDonnell said the union’s campaign would be informed by the outcome of its actuarial report. Management at the clinic had earlier refused the union access to the books, despite claiming that the scheme’s deficit was bad enough to justify closure of the fund.

The union has been in talks with CRC management since it collapsed the scheme when it stopped making payments last month. The contributory pension scheme covers almost 150 current and former staff who have over 1,000 years of service between them.

Staff who are members of the scheme have all been paying into it for a minimum of 15 years. They currently contribute 10% of their gross pay to the fund.

The Central Remedial Clinic is a national organisation for children and adults with a primary physical disabilities. Its pension fund has 44 active members (members currently employed by CRC and contributing to the fund), about 50 deferred members (former CRC staff who expect to receive some pension benefits when they retire), and about 50 retired members (who currently receive pensions from the scheme).