The Civil Service is the area for which I have direct responsibility. The position there is that, prior to 31 July 1973, the law required that female employees had to resign on marriage. In such cases, employees under pension age who had at least five years' service qualified for marriage gratuities of 1/12th of salary per year of service, subject to a maximum of one year's salary.
Where a person who resigns before pension age subsequently becomes a civil servant, the break in service does not debar the reckoning of the prior service for purposes of any pension benefits for which they subsequently become eligible in respect of the later service. In order to aggregate the periods of service, an appropriate refund must be made in respect of any payment made to them on the occasion of the initial resignation. This would be of benefit to any of the employees affected by the marriage bar who re-entered the Civil Service after 1973.
I have no plans to change the Superannuation Acts to provide pensions for officers who resigned on marriage before 1973. Such change would, inter alia, have wide ramifications for employees who left the public service before the introduction of preserved pension entitlements.
