Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Question:48. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he intends to review current public sector pension abatement legislation. [51546/12]
View answerWednesday, 21 November 2012
Questions (48)
Written answers
Abatement in the public service is intended to ensure that a pensioner's combined income from salary and occupational pension does not exceed the salary he or she would have had if he or she had not retired from the civil or public service. The practice goes as far back as the Superannuation Act 1834. The Deputy should note that the application of abatement has widened recently, insofar as it may be applied in respect of any public service employment obtained by a public service pensioner; previously abatement could normally only apply where the pensioner returned to same public service employment or pension scheme from which his or her pension was payable.
This extension of pension abatement was provided for in section 51 (Abatement and reckoning of pensionable service) of the Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Act 2012. That section provides that where a pension is payable by a public service body to a public service pensioner and the pensioner receives any remuneration from any public service body, then during this time no more of the pension shall be paid than so much as, with that remuneration, equals the pensionable remuneration which the pensioner would have received if he or she was once again working in the position in which he or she served in the public service.
The legislation also allows me to remove any doubt or question arising in the application of abatement, and to waive the abatement provision if persons with particular training and experience are required for particular work in the public service body concerned and it is not practicable to meet that requirement otherwise than by the employment of the pensioner.
I recently signed an Order (Statutory Instrument No. 393 of 2012) which activated the extended abatement arrangements under section 51 of the 2012 Act. This means that abatement may now potentially be applied in all cases where a person with a public service pension in payment takes up a public service post on or after 1 November 2012. I have no further plans to amend the abatement legislation at this time.
For clarity, I should note that, in line with long-standing practice, abatement of pension under the legislation as I have just set out only applies to public service pensions, and then only in those cases where the public service pensioner obtains public service employment. This means that abatement does not apply to pensions paid to commercial state body retirees. Neither does it apply in cases where public service pensioners secure employment outside the public service.