I will explain the position in greater detail. In the late 1960s, a provision was introduced under one on the Finance Acts which allowed semi-State bodies to remove blue collar workers in particular who reached a certain level of salary from paying the full A stamp contribution and to contribute to the widows and orphans stamp instead. RTE took this option and introduced it on a compulsory basis, as did other semi-State bodies such as the ESB and CIE. This was done without notification, as Mr. Doyle explained, and the consequences quickly became apparent to us in the early 1970s, when we realised that, having been paying an A stamp and reduced to a D stamp, we would not qualify for any State entitlements, including the optical and dental benefits which applied to people on an A stamp.
As time went by, RTE had a second change in policy when, in the mid 1980s, it closed the superannuation scheme to all incoming employees and introduced a portable pension scheme. In doing so the company re-opened the A stamp qualification. This meant two groups of employees existed in RTE, one of which was compulsorily removed from the A stamp qualification and its entitlements. RTE revised its position in the 1980s and reintroduced it with the portable pension scheme.
This meant that someone who joined RTE in the 1960s as a blue collar worker such as an apprentice electrician, who qualified outside the organisation and paid stamps at the full rate for a year or two because the external contractor did not do so for apprentices, would pay for an A stamp and for the next 30 years would pay a D stamp, thereby not being qualified for any entitlement whatsoever.
The consequences of this became clear to Governments at the time and in 1996 the then Government introduced a measure, which became official in 1998, whereby one could qualify for a minimum pension with a minimum amount of stamps. The minimum amount of stamps introduced as a qualifier was 260 A stamps paid prior to one's 58th birthday. This would qualify one for a quarter minimum pension. One could go as high as a full minimum pension, the difference being €8 in 2002, between qualifying for the full entitlement of a full minimum pension and the full old age pension at 66. We believe that to be inequitable to people who, without their acceptance or authorisation, were removed from paying the A stamp, thereby disqualifying them from a State pension. They could work in RTE for a number of years and not qualify in any way for a State pension.
If one takes the practical example of a D stamp being valued at £2, as it was when we first made the calculation, and an A stamp being valued at £8, we asked that a monetary equation be put on the value of the stamps. In other words, four D stamps would equate to one A stamp in order to allow people to qualify for the minimum entitlements.
That is our argument and, as Mr. Doyle has already stated, we have had this proposition endorsed by the Irish Senior Citizens' Parliament and by the federation. I accept that it is complicated and difficult. It came to light to me in my position as chairman of the Pensioners Association. However, I was also previously chairperson of RTE's trade union group during the transition period and am fully aware of the number of people who left RTE with very small pensions, having worked there for quite a number of years and who failed to qualify for a State pension and all that goes with it. We are here today to see if anything can be done for the people I represented then and consequently discovered existed within the ESB and the other semi-State bodies in which this occurred at the same time.