The Central Bank Bill is an amending Bill dealing with superannuation. When the Act was passed in 1942, the superannuation scheme included at that time was not capable of being amended. The aim of this Bill is, in the first place, to give the board of the central bank power to amend the scheme set out in Section 2. It then goes on to limit their power of amendment. The scheme can be amended to deal with a chairman who has been in the Civil Service. It gives them power to aggregate the service of the particular person in the Civil Service and as chairman of the central bank. The amendment of the scheme can be retrospective to 1st December, 1960, and it lays down that rules of superannuation in the Civil Service will apply to the governor of the central bank.
It does not apply beyond 1st December. It applies to the person who was governor of the bank at that time or since. When this scheme comes into effect, no pension will be payable to him from the exchequer as a civil servant. He will be paid by the central bank. If it should happen that he has received any amount by way of pension from the Civil Service from 1st December until the scheme is made, then that amount will be taken into account. In other words, it will be deducted from the amount which would be due to him if the scheme had applied from 1st December. That is the scheme visualised under the Bill.
The same procedure has been adopted with the chairman of other State companies: the chairman of the E.S.B. and the chairman of C.I.E. It has been thought well to follow the same pattern here. I want to make it clear to Senators that if the Bill is passed and the scheme is made as outlined here, then the central bank will be responsible for the chairman's pension. He will receive his whole pension from Central Bank funds and will not receive anything from the civil service. That is what has applied already to the chairman of the E.S.B. and the chairman of C.I.E. I ask the Seanad to adopt this Bill.