Vol. 497 No. 2
211 Mr. Yates asked the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the fact that former head postmasters were deprived of a legitimate increase in their pensions for the period 1 June 1988 to 31 December 1991; if he will raise this issue with An Post; if it will be rectified in view of the fact that the An Post superannuation scheme could afford to pay the increase; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24745/98]
The Deputy will appreciate that the application of pensions increases to former head postmasters is a matter, in the first instance, for An Post and the Department of Public Enterprise. I can, however, say that this matter has been the subject of a formal appeal to me under paragraph 20 of An Post Main Superannuation Scheme, 1990, which provides that a member or former member of the scheme who considers that the company has failed to or refused to make an award under this scheme may appeal to the Minister for Finance whose decision shall be final.
I considered the appeal and I decided to reject it. The payments in question were not a permanent part of the pay scales of the postmaster grades during the period 1 June 1988 to 31 December 1991. They were part of a productivity deal paid to serving staff, on an unconsolidated basis, during that period pending the achievement of agreed specified savings. A core policy of pensions parity is that only permanent changes or additions to pay scales are passed on to pensioners; accordingly, the payments were not passed on to these pensioners during this period. I would point out that the productivity payments were consolidated into the pay scales with effect from 1 January 1992 and the benefit was passed on to pensioners from that date.
