Sandra McLellan
Question:45. Deputy Sandra McLellan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he intends to reduce the annual salary paid to Deputies, Senators and Ministers. [51544/12]
View answerOireachtas Members' Remuneration
Questions (45)
Written answers
The Government decided on taking office in March 2011 to reduce the salaries of An Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Ministers with immediate effect. The reductions were implemented by all relevant Officeholders on a voluntary basis pending the passage of the necessary legislation giving statutory effect to the reductions. Section 6 (c) of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Amendment) Act, 2011 provides the legislative basis for the pay reductions from 1 January 2012.
The gross annual salaries now applicable to An Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Ministers amount to €200,000, €184,405 and €169,275, respectively. The gross salaries indicated are inclusive of the pay element for a Deputy amounting to €92,672.
The effect of these reductions is that the gross annual salary of An Taoiseach has been reduced by nearly 30% since December 2009, and that of the Tánaiste and Ministers by nearly 25% from December 2009.
The salary of a TD is linked to the normal maximum of the Principal Officer standard scale, the Senator rate of pay is set at 70% of the TD rate. They were reduced in line with the reductions applied to all public servants in 2009 and 2010. The link to the Principal Officer was recommended by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector, in its Report No 38, and accepted by the then Government. I have no current proposals to alter that arrangement.
Question No. 46 answered with Question No. 9.
Public Sector Reform Review
Questions (47)
Alan Farrell
Question:47. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of days' annual leave that employees are permitted to carry over to a following year; the timescale in which they are required to be taken; if there is provision within the Croke Park agreement to impose a cap on the number of days allowed to be carried over; his views on the way a restriction on carried over days may improve services due to the elimination of prolonged annual leave; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51428/12]
View answerWritten answers
As the Deputy will be aware, the Public Service Agreement 2010-2014 is progressing the requirement for a more flexible public service through various changes such as the new standardised leave arrangements that are being implemented across the public service.
In regard to the specific issue of carry over leave, I presume that the Deputy is referring to the carry over of annual leave within the Civil Service. The Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997, governs the carry over of the statutory minimum (4 working weeks) within the leave year in which it is accrued, or with the employee’s consent, within six months of the start of the leave year.
Carry over of leave, in excess of the statutory minimum, may be allowed on the basis of a three year cycle as follows: at the end of the first year of the cycle or of any year in which an officer's leave allowance is the standard allowance, any relevant untaken leave may be carried forward to the next leave year; the carried forward leave should be taken in the second year of the cycle. If this is not possible the untaken balance of the total leave allowable may be carried forward to the third year; at the end of the third year of the cycle, carry-over will be limited to the difference (if any) between the statutory minimum annual leave allowance (4 working weeks) and the officer’s normal annual leave allowance which has been accrued during the third year of the cycle.
Therefore, there are existing mechanisms in place to limit the carry over of annual leave. Within the three year cycle, the carry over of leave can only be permitted once an employee’s annual leave has been declined due to work requirements. Furthermore, at the end of the three year cycle, carry over is limited to the difference (if any) between the statutory minimum annual leave allowance and the officer’s normal annual leave allowance which has been accrued during the third year of the cycle.
I would emphasise that carry over of annual leave should only happen in exceptional circumstances and is not the norm.
Public Sector Pensions Legislation
Questions (48)
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 answerWritten 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.