asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is prepared to consider crediting for pension purposes the service of Post Office employees in the armed forces during the period of national emergency.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Pensionable Service of Post Office Employees.
26.
In common with other civil servants, Post Office employees who joined the Defence Forces with official permission during the emergency have the period of absence on army service reckoned for pension purposes under the Superannuation Acts.
Service in the forces in other circumstances does not reckon and any question of extending the scope of the Acts is one which the Minister for Finance would have to consider in relation to the service as a whole.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary consider making a recommendation to the Minister for Finance to reconsider this matter?
I do not see from the question exactly what the Deputy wants considered, apart from what we have been doing. Service rendered at that time in the Defence Forces by employees of the Post Office has been taken into account for pension purposes.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that at the end of the emergency a considerable number of men who had served during the full period of emergency became employees of the Post Office? Will the Parliamentary Secretary not agree to have the question of their national service considered for pension purposes?
They did not become attached to the Post Office until after the emergency.
That is what I said. They were members of the Defence Forces during the previous six years and if the emergency had not occurred, they might have been in the Post Office during those years.
It is basically a matter for the Minister for Finance.
Will you ask your good friend, the Minister for Finance——
I shall ask him.