I move the Second Reading of this Bill. It is a Bill to provide pensions for commissioners of the Gárda Síochána in circumstances not provided for hitherto. Pensions for members of the Gárda Síochána, including the commissioner, are regulated at present by a pensions order made in October, 1925, by the Minister for Justice with sanction of the Minister for Finance under statutory powers which enabled these Ministers to make such order. The terms of that order are to provide for the case of a commissioner who retires owing to age or because he has become incapacitated for the performance of his duties, in which case he would be eligible for pension. No provision, as Deputies will see, was made in that order for the case of a commissioner who is removed for misconduct, and it is not suggested in this Bill that such provision should be made. I think it will be agreed that there is no need to make such provision as it is the invariable rule of the public service that dismissal for misconduct deprives the offender of any claim to pension. It would be contrary to the regulations of the Civil Service. No provision, however, was made in the order for the case of a commissioner who is removed on grounds of public policy, without being charged with misconduct or for incapacity. It is to meet such a situation that this Bill is being introduced.
The sense of the Bill is that when a commissioner is removed for reasons other than incapacity or misconduct, a certificate is issued by the President of the Executive Council to that effect and, thereupon, the Minister for Finance is enabled to grant such commissioner a life-pension on the terms set out in the Bill. As regards these terms, I may perhaps explain that the ordinary pension of a police officer is ascertained by taking a fraction of his salary, the denominator of the fraction being the figure 60 and the numerator being the number of years of his completed service. If, however, his completed service is more than 21 years then every year over 20 years counts as two, so that 22 years' service counts as 24, 23 years' service as 26, and so on. In the ordinary course, therefore, a police officer with 22 years' service would have for a pension twenty-four sixtieths of his salary at date of retirement. In the case of a commissioner who fails to be pensioned under this Bill we have provided, however, by way of additional compensation, that a certain number of years may be added to his actual service for the purpose of calculating a pension. The precise provisions in that respect will be seen in sub-section (3) of Section 1. Then, at the end of the Bill, there are certain provisions and safeguards to ensure that pensions may not be obtained by fraud and that they may be forfeited or reduced in certain events, and so on. These are the usual provisions which are provided, I think, under the Pensions Act of 1924.