Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 20 May 1970

Vol. 68 No. 3

Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, 1969: Committee and Final Stages.

Sections 1 to 3, inclusive, agreed to.

SECTION 4.

Question proposed: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill."

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I should like to ask one question in relation both to section 4 and to section 5. It is in regard to paragraphs (i) and (ii) in relation to the supplementary allow ance. This provides for.

a supplementary allowance for his life the annual amount of which together with the annual amount of the pension aforesaid is equal to—

(i) one half of the annual rate of the remuneration paid to the person by the Board immediately before his retirement from the employment of the Board, or

(ii) the annual amount of the pension which would have been payable to the person aforesaid if the whole of his continuous service in the employment of the Board had been reckoned therefor.

whichever is the less.

My question is, why do we say "whichever is the less"? Why do not we say "whichever is the more"? Neither of those will be a large sum and why have we this pinchbeck niggling desire always to reduce it? It will not be some enormous sum given out if you take either of those amounts, and my appeal would be to the Minister whether it would not be acceptable to say in each case, both in section 4 and in section 5, "whichever is the more", "whichever is the greater". Why do we have to cut it down to the less?

Mr. B. Lenihan

The difficulty here is that we are bringing the people concerned up to the level of the older pre- 1943 people, and that is the provision which applies generally to those people. We have here tried to remedy what I think was a legitimate complaint by certain pre-1943 people, and this is really the only real sense in it, in that it is putting those people on the same basis as the people who were over 40 in 1943. This is the provision that exists in their case, so we are putting the other people on the same basis.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Would the Minister consider whether it would not be more equitable to put them on the same basis by raising the present people? Does he not feel a certain shame—and knowing the Minister I think that he probably does—about cutting them down in this way?

Mr. B. Lenihan

This is the normal feature in all superannuation Acts, and this is the way it is done. I want to say in answer to another Senator who spoke —I think it was Senator Russell—that the reference to the person's annual rate of remuneration relates to his last year's pay prior to retirement. I have nothing more to say than that this is the procedure under every superannuation Act —this is the type of alternative that is given.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

There is an equivalent meanness in every other Act.

Question put and agreed to.

Sections 5 and 6 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7.30 p.m.