Vol. 545 No. 2
26 Mr. McGrath asked the Minister for Finance his plans to implement the recommendations of the report of the Commission on Public Service Pensions in part or in full; if his attention has been drawn to the concerns of many public service pensioners regarding the future of the traditional relationship between public service pensions and increases in the salaries paid in respect of their former jobs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30206/01]
I announced the Government's response to the final report of the Commission on Public Service Pensions on 28 September 2001. The Government has decided to accept the thrust of the package of reforms recommended by the commission and has directed that a working group to advise on implementation, as provided for in the PPF, should be established. The operational details of the implementation of the commission recommendations will be agreed by Government following receipt of a report from the implementation working group, within six months of the Government decision.
Parallel structures, subject to the same time frame and remit, are being established for the Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces. Arrangements are also being made to facilitate pensioner group representation in relation to the commission's recommendations on pensions increase policy. My Department has had discussions with the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions regarding the establishment of the working group. Its terms of reference have been agreed and my Department has asked that a plenary meeting of the group be held as soon as possible. I am hopeful that this will occur in December. My Department is also finalising arrangements for involving pensioners in the working group process. A number of pensioner groups have been invited to send representatives to a preliminary meeting on 11 December next.
The Government undertook to protect public service pensions in its action programme for the millennium. The Commission on Public Service Pensions has made recommendations in relation to the form which future pension increases should take. This will come within the remit of the implementation working group to which I have referred. As I have already indicated, arrangements are being made to facilitate pensioner group representation in relation to the commission recommendations on pensions increase policy.
What is the Minister's view in relation to maintaining public service pay parity? It has been the case for some time that pensioners receive increases in their pensions as salaries increase.
What is the Minister's view on whether this system should be maintained? Following Delivering Better Local Government and other initiatives, a raft of changes has occurred in local authority structures in terms of the development of programme managers, etc. What is the Minister's view of pay parity for people who held such positions under a different title in the past, for example, council secretaries and county managers?
In the 1997 pre-election campaign, public pensioner groups conducted a significant degree of lobbying. At that time and in the programme for Government subsequently agreed, Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats committed themselves to the principle of pension parity upon which the Government acted on taking office. The decisions we made were welcomed by the public service committee of ICTU. I am aware of the difficulties to which the Deputy referred. The PCW restructuring process which occurred in many areas of the public service resulted in difficulties in making comparisons between new jobs and previous ones.
The McAleese commission was instituted by my predecessor, Deputy Quinn, to examine the area of public service pensions. The commission's comprehensive report, covering a wide range of groups, advanced a number of ideas to deal with this matter which received a general welcome from the affected parties, including unions. Arising from that, the Government set up an implementation group and recently decided to invite pensioner groups to come before the group to outline their cases. The public service pensions group suggested that pensions should be increased in line with a general index of recorded changes in public service pay rather than changes in the pay of serving grades, as happens at present. That was the collective wisdom articulated by the group. The implementation group will proceed with its discussions with other interested parties after which it will publish a report upon which the Government will act.
For somebody who normally speaks his mind I am disappointed that, although the Minister referred to the commission's report and its contents, he did not outline his own view on this matter. Is he in favour of maintaining pay parity for retired civil servants? I want a straight "yes" or "no" answer. If the Minister is in favour of this position, will he give us a commitment to stand over it and seek to maintain it in the future? If the Minister is not prepared to give us a straight answer, we can only conclude he is not in favour of maintaining pay parity.
The Government accepted the thrust of the McAleese commission's report, as did almost all the relevant groups throughout the country. The commission outlined possible methods of approaching this area in the future which will overcome the problems that have existed in this area. In 1997, we outlined a floor for some groups which almost everyone accepted. However, some people on the margins attempted to compare jobs they held years ago with current jobs and that proved exceptionally difficult as job specifications have changed in a wide range of areas with the agreement of unions and in accordance with changing work practices. The Government has adopted the principle advanced by the McAleese commission, as has almost everyone else, and we now intend to proceed with implementation.
In light of the Minister's reply, we can only guess at a negative response.
A profession with which the Deputy is familiar would not have received anything at all had I not acted in a particular way in 1997.
