I move:
"That Dáil Éireann hereby approves of the amendment of the Oireachtas (Members) Pensions Scheme, 1960, made under section 6 (A) of the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) Act, 1938 by
(1) the addition to sub-clause (4) of Clause 5 of the scheme of the following proviso: ‘Provided that the foregoing provision of this sub-clause shall not apply in relation to any period of service in respect of which the member has paid the appropriate contribution under clause 4 of this Scheme', and
(2) the deletion of sub-clause (7) of Clause 5 of the Scheme."
The purpose of the motion is, first, to apply to the Oireachtas Members Pensions Fund the principles set out in the Abatement Act which the House passed a couple of years ago; and, secondly, to apply also the principle that a person who pays a contribution to a fund of this nature is entitled to benefit by those contributions. At the present time, even though a person who has held Ministerial or a Parliamentary Secretary's office and may have already qualified for a pension by the number of years he has served, he must, under the fund, continue to pay contributions as any other Deputy does, but gets no credit for these contributions as to years of service as a Deputy. These are the two purposes of the motion.