Hard-up PMS Savers In Focus

Savers in the failed Presbyterian Mutual Society (PMS) may soon be thrown a lifeline.

Days after NI Finance Minister Sammy Wilson criticised a report published by the Treasury Select Committee into handling of the issue, Stormont ministers are now considering three options for stranded savers, including a last ditch "hardship fund" to help members of the crisis-hit Society who are most 'in distress'.

The report from a House of Commons committee claimed that a "fatal gap" in regulation was to blame for the PMS collapse, adding DUP Minister Arlene Foster's Department of Enterprise could have taken preventative action.

The report investigated the collapse of the PMS in 2008 and follows a visit to Belfast by the Committee last month.

Sammy Wilson yesterday responded: "I find it extremely disappointing that the Treasury Select Committee has taken the opportunity today to grab cheap political headlines at the expense of savers in the PMS.

'It is quite obvious to me that the Committee came to this issue intending to do nothing more than sensationalise what is a very serious subject.

"The Committee has not attempted to be helpful in any way and the report contains a number of inaccuracies, the most distressing being the claim that there is a lack of political will to solve the problem," he said.

"We have met regularly with PMS savers and the Church to advise them on work being taken forward. Unfortunately much of this work has had to remain confidential to ensure that the administration process was not compromised.

"I, and my Executive colleagues, have raised this issue at every opportunity, including during the recent negotiations at Hillsborough Castle and the subsequent meeting held between the First and deputy First Ministers and the Prime Minister," Mr Wilson continued.

DUP leader Peter Robinson also hit out at the report, branding it "a shoddy buck-passing exercise."

The First Minister said he would be meeting the Prime Minister again with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to continue to press for a rescue plan for PMS savers.

He also revealed that the work to identify a solution to the problem included three options.

These cover a bank taking on the PMS assets as a means of securing a future for its savers. Secondly, NI ministers are researching a plan which would require Treasury support, while the final option is the suggested hardship fund.

The Presbyterian Moderator Dr Stafford Carson has given the proposals a cautious welcome.

See: PMS Report Slams DETI 'Inaction'

(BMcC/GK)