asked the Minister for the Environment the reasons for the delay in issuing the detailed instructions on the operation of the pension scheme for local authority servants which was recommended to take effect from 27th May 1977.
28.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Superannuation Scheme.
27.
asked the Minister for the Environment when he proposes to implement the recommendations in the Interim Report of the working party on Local Authority Superannuation.
29.
asked the Minister for the Environment if he will state in respect of the Superannuation Scheme recommended in the Interim Report of the Working Party the principal changes recommended in respect of: (a) pensions and gratuities affecting servants' widows, (b) the nature of any reservations made by the Department of the Public Service regarding gratuities and so on, and (c) why the detailed instructions on the implementation of the Report other than Paragraph 2.18, have not been issued.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 27, 28 and 29 together.
With regard to Questions Nos. 27 and 28 and (c) in Question No. 29, instructions in relation to the payment of gratuities to non-pensionable persons, as recommended by the Working Party on Local Authority Superannuation, were issued to local authorities and other bodies concerned on the 17th October.
The superannuation arrangements generally, as put forward by the working party, are new and complex, particularly in so far as servants are concerned, and involve the preparation of detailed instructions as well as a scheme and an explanatory memorandum to be made available to each pensionable employee to assist him in understanding the effects of the scheme and in deciding whether or not to have it applied to him. The Deputies can be assured that I am taking all practicable steps to have the relevant instructions and so on for local authorities and other bodies issued at the earliest possible date.
With regard to (a) in Question No. 29, the principal changes recommended in respect of pensions and gratuities affecting servants' widows are that the Local Authorities Widows' and Orphans' Pension Scheme, as applicable to officers, should be extended to servants; that the widows of servants who retired or died before the operative date of the recommendations contained in the report (27th May, 1977) should be granted ex gratia pensions; and that there should be cover for death gratuity for all pensionable servants irrespective of the length of their service.
The reservation referred to at (b) in Question No. 29 related to short service gratuities and marriage gratuities and indicated that the representative of the Department of the Public Service on the working party considered that these matters should be examined further by the working party with a view to bringing the arrangements in the local authority service into line in each case with those which apply to comparable categories of State employees.
I thank the Minister for his detailed reply. Would he not agree that nearly five months is a little too long to have this matter delayed? With the excellent staff in his Department should it not have been possible to have the necessary documentation prepared and sent out to the local authorities long before now? With regard to the reservation by the Department of the Public Service, has the Minister looked at the case made for the reservation, and would he consider trying to get agreement on that before the final report comes in?
My Department are ready to issue these instructions or whatever is required. A delay has been caused by the Department of the Public Service on certain issues, but, having made further inquiry, I am happy to say that these have now been resolved or are about to be resolved at any moment.
When agreement was reached, except for the points mentioned here, before I left office five months ago, surely the Department of the Public Service should not have been allowed to hold up matters again just to suit somebody who did not agree with it originally and felt that the new Minister would listen when the previous Minister would not?
They have been satisfactorily resolved from the servants' point of view.
I am glad to hear that.
Is the Minister aware of the situation at local authority level where members and employees of local authority staffs, through fear because of the non-implementation of Deputy Tully's "27th May", have stayed on working, and that at the moment there is discrimination in that some of the principles and ideas in the report are already being enjoyed by the civil service and not being enjoyed by local authorities and semi-State bodies? Would the Minister do all he can to finalise this matter as soon as possible?
In a very short time it will be finalised.