asked the Minister for Finance the total monetary value to date of the 1½ per cent deductions from salaries of male civil servants who have joined the civil service widows and orphans pension scheme.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Civil Service Widows and Orphans Pension Scheme.
13.
Contributions to the scheme are made by periodic deductions from pay and payments from lump sums and death gratuities. A breakdown of these figures is not available. The total of contributions paid to 30th September, 1971, is £1,211,888.
Is it not possible from the total figure to estimate what 1½ per cent is? Is that not what was asked?
No. The contributions are made up on the one hand of the 1½ per cent but also of a 1 per cent deduction from either lump sums on retirement or gratuities on death in respect of each year of reckonable service for which there was not a contribution. Being made up from these two sources, you cannot by taking the total get a breakdown.
Surely, when the Minister insists on 1½ per cent being stopped for pension purposes, he knows the total of that amount or that information is in the Department. It would seem an extraordinary thing if it is not known what this 1½ per cent that is insisted upon amounts to.
No, there is no reason why we should have that separate figure.
You would want to be satisfied. You are just extracting it and that is it, but you do not know what the total is.
14.
asked the Minister for Finance if, in view of his decision to allow widows of civil servants who died between 23rd July, 1968, and 1st January, 1969, and who had not opted to join the civil service widows and orphans pension scheme, full benefit under that scheme, he will now grant the same facility to the widows of those officers who died prior to 23rd July, 1968 and were consequently not afforded the opportunity of joining such a scheme.
The contributory widows' and children's pension scheme introduced on 23rd July, 1968, applies to civil servants who were serving on or after that date. I do not propose to admit officers, or their widows, who retired or died before that date to the scheme.
Is not the situation that at the time this pension was introduced the widows of people who died prior to that date asked to be brought into the scheme, to be allowed to buy their way into the scheme and went to the point of approaching banks for money to do this and they were not allowed to do it but civil servants who did not opt into the scheme——
We cannot debate the whole question.
This is a question that I am asking. Does the Minister realise that widows of civil servants who died subsequent to the introduction of the scheme and who had not opted in at that time, have since been allowed to buy themselves in? Why the distinction? They have been allowed to buy themselves in retrospectively.
The position is that the scheme was agreed and was to operate as from 23rd July, 1968. After that date documents had to be prepared explaining the scheme and had to be circulated to the civil servants concerned and they had to be given an opportunity to assimilate it and decide whether they wanted to opt in or out and documents could not be prepared until after that date because agreement was not reached until then. Therefore, a certain amount of time had to elapse and it was decided that the necessary time that had to elapse was to the end of that year, December, 1968. Therefore, any officer serving at that date had the option up to the end of that year to opt in or out. Some officers died during that period and in such cases the option to opt in was passed on to the widow or the legal personal representatives of the man who died. That was a reasonable approach in the circumstances. We could not have done anything else. Considering that the man who died had the option, it should have been available to his widow or legal representative. But this option arises solely out of the administrative difficulties I have mentioned, under which it was agreed at the time that there would be an option operating between 23rd July and the end of 1968.
I suggest to the Minister that that is not so. Does he know that on three different occasions since, one quite recently, the opportunity to opt in has been given?
In the case of civil servants?
In the case of civil servants and not just in the first few months when this difficulty of circulating documents existed.
I am not so aware and that is not what the Deputy says in his question either.
That is what the Deputy says in his question, as I read it.
No. He says "... if, in view of his decision to allow widows of civil servants who died between 23rd July, 1968, and 1st January, 1969 ...". That is the period I was talking about—to the end of that year.
There are other questions on the Order Paper.
Yes, but even subsequent to that date——
We cannot debate this question all evening. There are 150 questions.
This is a very important question.
Yes. So are the other questions.
There is a differentiation between widows whose husbands died on a certain date and widows whose husbands died on another date, some being allowed to buy themselves in retrospectively and others not being so allowed.