Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 21 April 2021
551. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the status of plans to remove FEMPI cuts from retired members of An Garda Síochána; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19044/21]
View answerThe Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) legislation reduced public service pensions by way of the Public Service Pension Reduction (PSPR), introduced on 1 January 2011 under the FEMPI Act 2010. The PSPR did not target any particular sector specifically, but was a progressive reduction, imposed by way of rate bands based on the pay-out value of the pension, with pension values below certain thresholds exempt from the measure.
A three-stage partial reversal of PSPR was provided for in the FEMPI Act 2015, largely by way of increases in the exemption thresholds, occurring on 1 January in each of the years 2016, 2017 and 2018. The Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017 provided for the substantial further lessening of the impact of PSPR, by way of increases in the PSPR exemption thresholds and/or the lessening of the percentage reduction rates in each of the years 2019 and 2020. This meant that from 1 January 2020 on, 97% of public service pensions were no longer impacted by this measure.
Under section 27 of the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform was required to make an Order, before 31 December 2020, which would specify a date for the full removal of PSPR from that residual group of PSPR-affected pensions. Following a Government Decision of 8 December 2020, the date for the full removal of PSPR has been decided as 1 July 2021 and the Minister gave effect to this through the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017 (Section 27(3)) Order 2020, which was signed on 15 December 2020.
