Vol. 534 No. 5
108 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Finance when arrears due to retired senior civil servants since September 2000 will be paid; if staff are calculating the arrears due by hand, due to a shortage of computers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11143/01]
The increases and any arrears owing to retired senior civil servants under the 38th Report of the Review on Higher Remuneration (Buckley) should be paid by end-May 2001. The increases, which were approved for payment on 28 February 2001, are payable with effect from 25 September 2000 and 1 March 2001. In addition, the 1 October 2000 increase under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness will have to be revised and the 2% increase under the same agreement from 1 April 2001 has also to be paid.
Under normal circumstances these increases would have been calculated by the computerised pension system. However, because the exercise involved a complex interaction of calculations arising from both the review body and PPF increases, a considerable amount of reprogramming would have been required in order to implement the increases in the normal way.
Furthermore, there are several other IT initiatives currently ongoing, that is, a changeover of computer payroll systems, preparation for the euro and the introduction of the tax credit system, and considering the number of pensioners involved – 400 approximately – it was decided that calculation of the increases manually was a more practical and productive use of resources on this occasion. I would wish to make it clear to the Deputy that this decision was made because of the unusual level of pressure on our IT personnel at present and not because of a shortage of computers.
