Written Answers. - Voluntary Service Abroad.
Emmet Stagg
Question:
135
Mr. Stagg
asked the
Minister for Finance
if he will outline the position covering civil servants who serve with APSO in relation to loss of salary, loss of incremental date for pay increases and loss of service for superannuation purposes while on duty; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[22828/97]
My Department, in consultation and agreement with staff interests, recently revised and consolidated the arrangements concerning special leave of absence for overseas development work, with particular reference to public service volunteers on special leave to work with the Agency for Personal Services Overseas (APSO). This was done primarily to facilitate the Department of Foreign Affairs in the establishment of a "Rapid Response Register", that is, a list of volunteers, mainly in the health services, who will be identified by APSO as suitable for rapid deployment in the event of a humanitarian emergency.
In general, a civil servant may be granted special leave without pay for up to a total of five years for overseas development work. If the question of special leave with pay were to arise, it would normally only be granted on the basis of full recoupment to the employing Department of the officer's salary, employer's PRSI and superannuation costs.
On return from special leave for overseas development work, the officer may, if the Head of the Department thinks fit, be placed on the salary scale point which s/he would have reached by incremental progression had s/he not taken special leave.
An officer who is granted special leave for voluntary service abroad with APSO and who, at the time of assignment, is serving in a pensionable capacity can have such service abroad reckoned for superannuation purposes on a limited basis provided the officer is approved and funded as a volunteer development worker by APSO, and is working in a developing country, as defined. If the conditions are satisfied, the officer is entitled to have up to a maximum of three years of volunteer service given after 1 January 1995 reckoned as pensionable service for all purposes, where a benefit becomes payable by reference to his-her actual service. Normally, volunteer service assignments of less than six months will not be reckonable but where an officer on the Rapid Response Register has a series of short-term assignments overseas, which exceed six months in aggregate over a three year period, all such service may be reckoned.
The arrangements provide that, where an officer is entitled to have a period of volunteer service reckoned for superannuation purposes, APSO makes the appropriate superannuation contributions direct to the employing Department. If appropriate, periods of special leave not covered by these arrangements may be dealt with under the existing scheme for the purchase of notional service for superannuation purposes, with the individual officer responsible for meeting the cost of purchase of the notional service involved.
My Department has communicated the detailed provisions and conditions relating to the above arrangements to all Government Departments and offices which, as the arrangements extend to many other areas of the public sector, have been requested to bring the detailed arrangements to the attention of all bodies under their aegis.
