Employers group Ibec welcomed the changes and said it had been lobbying for years to see defined benefit schemes distributed more fairly between those who have retired and those yet to.

Ibec’s head of industrial relations and human resources Maeve McElwee said the rules at present are “desperately unfair”.

“If a scheme collapses, a person one day short of retirement can have their entire pension wiped out, while a person who has just retired retains 100 per cent of their benefits,” she said. “Existing pensioners will still have considerably more protection, but people of working age will receive a greater proportion of the scheme’s assets.”

The Pensions Board said it would have to review its statutory guidance on aspects of the Pensions Act following the introduction of the Bill. It said it would issue "revised statutory guidance where necessary".

Deficits
The board's chief executive Brendan Kennedy said it would have to defer making decisions on applications regarding schemes that currently have funding proposals and benefit reduction applications before it.

“The board expects there will be no lessening of the efforts by trustees to resolve scheme deficits and that funding proposals can be submitted to the board at any time,” he said.