asked the Minister for the Public Service the total sums of money due to be paid by the State and by semi-State bodies to public servants by way of disturbance money or allowance; the criteria used in adjudicating such claims; the groups to which such payments are to be made or have been made in each of the last five years; the amount paid in each case and the nature of the disturbance in respect of which such payments either have been made or are to be made; and, in particular where such disturbance arises as a result of a transfer to new offices, the distance between the old and new offices.
Ceisteanna: Questions. Oral Answers. - Disturbance Money.
5.
Disturbance allowances are normally payable by reference to an agreed formula based on the distance between the old and new locations; this arrangement is employed as an alternative to assessing cases individually. The Civil Service agreements of this kind provide for a range of payments up to £665 per person based on distances up to six-seven miles. The total amount paid in each of the last five years is as follows:
|
1979 |
Nil |
|
1980 |
Nil |
|
1981 |
£298,900 |
|
1982 |
£336,270 |
|
1983 |
£670,150 |
Practically all the payments are to staff employed in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. In addition, specific settlements not related to any general formula have been reached in a very small number of cases in the Civil Service and the Garda Síochána. The total amount involved in the past five years was £80,700.
The cost of settling outstanding disturbance claims will bring the total amount for the settlement of such claims in 1983 to approximately £2 million. I have no information about payments of this nature to other Public Service groups.
Would the Minister agree that at a time of large-scale unemployment it is particularly inappropriate that payments of this nature be made in the Public Service, particularly to those who seek payment for the luxury of moving from what often are old and dilapidated offices to new and modern ones? Can the Minister confirm that it is the intention of the Government not to permit such payments in future years and can he confirm also that such a direction will be given to semi-State bodies in respect of such claims?
Yes. I have indicated recently the decision of the Government that the payment of what have become known as disturbance payments will not be continued by the Government with effect from 1 January of next year. In addition the Government decision also directs that they will not agree to the payment of disturbance allowances in respect of the public sector. As the House may be aware, we have urged also that the private sector might follow suit in this matter.
Is the Minister in a position to indicate the number of outstanding claims in respect of which payment has to be made, or claims made to date related to public servants moving distances of a mile or less in respect of their place of employment? Is the Minister in a position to give a figure for the total cost of such disturbance, both in the context of payments made to date and of payments the Government will have to meet?
I have not got that information. There are two different sets of scales employed in the Civil Service. One relates to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and the other to the remainder of the Civil Service. In relation to the remainder of the Civil Service there is no payment in respect of movements involving less than half a mile. The Department of Posts and Telegraphs does provide for payment in relation even to that distance. I have not got figures showing the portion of the payments which arise in relation to moves of less than a mile. If the Deputy is particularly interested I will have the information extracted and sent to him.
Could the Minister indicate what is the nature of the special arrangements that relate to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs? Is it correct to say that for movements of half a mile or less disturbance allowances have been claimed and are payable in respect of that Department? Could the Minister indicate further whether there is at present in existence a claim from employees of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs seeking disturbance allowance by virtue of the fact that their employer from 1 January 1984 might be An Bord Telcom instead of the Minister; whether members of that Department are claiming disturbance allowance in compensation for that?
I should point out that whilst I said that practically all of the payments are to staff employed in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, in fairness there are perhaps two reasons that ought be mentioned in that connection. One is that half of the total Civil Service is employed in one Department, that is the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. Of the total of approximately 60,000 employed in the Civil Service almost 30,000 are employed in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. Therefore, even on the law of averages, approximately half of any payments of this type would fall there.
The second point is that, in the last number of years, the Department of Posts and Telegraphs has been engaged in a large, ongoing, programme of modernisation of telecommunications system. This has involved them in the provision of a number of new offices. Perhaps there has been an unusually high proportion of movements of staff in that Department as a result.
However, the reason for the different scale of payments in that Department, as opposed to the rest of the Civil Service, is that the practice of making disturbance payments was first introduced into the Civil Service in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The particular scale of payments that still applies in that Department was devised at that time. As a result of the agreement to pay disturbance allowances in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs the practice then moved into the rest of the Civil Service, at which time I understand — and this would have been several years ago — the Government of the day, through my Department, then negotiated a scale of payments with the interests involved which was somewhat different from the Post Office scale.
Is the Minister in a position to deal with any existing claims that may have been made by employees of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs arising out of the establishment of An Bord Telecom and their transfer to it as and from the commencement of next year?
The question of dealing with disturbance payments in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, in the first instance, is a matter for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.