Vol. 482 No. 6
272 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance the percentage payments being made to pensioners and to serving staff under the restructuring pay deals of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work in relation to each of the major categories of public sector employees affected. [18952/97]
Agreements under the local bargaining provisions of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work in respect of the groups mentioned by the Deputy tended to be very complex and to differ widely in their structure. Among the elements which were included in different agreements were salary increases, which varied depending on an individual's length of service and in some cases were confined to serving staff and did not apply to new recruits, selective up-gradings and promotions for a limited proportion of a grade, and non-pay items such as enhanced early retirement provisions and the reckonability in future of certain payments for pension purposes. As a result of the complexity of the settlements, it would not be possible to express, in a meaningful way, the value of the settlements in terms of the percentage payments being made to serving staff.
I assume, however, that the Deputy's main concern relates to the impact on pensioners of the decision which I announced on 4 November 1997. As I explained at the time, the effect of the Government's decision is that public servants who retired before the commencement dates of restructuring deals under the PCW will benefit from those deals on a parity basis subject to a minimum increase of 3 per cent or 2 per cent in the case of any pensioners who have already received an advance payment of 1 per cent.
Accordingly, pensioners will in general get the same percentage increase as applied to the salaries of staff serving in the grade and on the scale point from which the pensioners retired. Traditional parity meant that pensioners could not benefit from some of the elements included in a number of deals, such as new allowances, personal long-service increments and higher scales which applied to limited numbers of staff. However, in order to protect those retired public servants who would have received less than 3 per cent had parity been applied in the normal way, the Government decided, as a once-off measure, that pensioners should be guaranteed a minimum increase of 3 per cent or 2 per cent in the case of any pensioners who have already received an advance payment of 1 per cent. The decision on pension increases reflected the position put forward by the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and has, I understand, been welcomed by them.
