Vol. 541 No. 3
94 Mr. Finucane asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development his views on an over-payment of £2,128.57 which has been suggested for a person (details supplied) in County Limerick; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22579/01]
It is a requirement of EU Council Regulation 2079/92, under which the 1994 scheme of early retirement from farming was introduced, that any national retirement pension to which a scheme participant becomes entitled must be offset against his or her early retirement pension. In July 2001, my Department received confirmation that the person named had been awarded a contributory old age pension with effect from 10 November 2000. This pension should have been offset against his payments under the early retirement scheme from that point, and therefore he had been overpaid in the meantime. My Department is obliged to recover such overpayments.
I am informed that the contributory old age pension was not paid directly to the person named until June 2001 because the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs withheld it in the meantime against an amount which he owed to a health board. Nevertheless, he had been the beneficiary of the old age pension since he qualified for it in November 2000 and it is from that date that it must be offset against his entitlement under the early retirement scheme.
