Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 May 2023
99. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Education if her Department would consider developing a mechanism for sharing historic employment records for the purposes of pension eligibility with the Department of Social Protection; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25179/23]
View answerMy Department currently provides historic employment records to school employees paid by the Schools Payroll Division on formal request. If these records are readily available from computerised payroll records, a report is issued to the employee within a number of days. In the case of older paper historic payroll records that have to be retrieved from archives there may be a delay involved while the records are retrieved from off-site storage and checked before issue.
The Payroll Division of my Department has not been approached by the Department of Social Protection to consider alternative arrangements in relation to employment records for the purposes of state pension eligibility. Any such arrangement would require compliance with data protection legislation on the sharing of personal information.
My Department is open to exploring how the transfer of such information to the Department of Social Protection could be facilitated in accordance with data protection requirements.
