asked the Minister for Education why a teacher (details supplied) in County Meath, will be credited with only half the number of years he has been teaching for pension purposes if and when he retires in 1988; the estimated number of religious-trained teachers who will receive less than 100 per cent pension entitlement for similar reasons; the estimated cost of bringing all such teachers up to parity in pension rights; and if he has any proposals to remedy this anomaly.
Written Answers. - Teachers' Pension Rights.
267.
Pensions from State funds are paid to former national school teachers in accordance with statutory superannuation schemes.
It has been open to religious orders conducting national schools to opt to have grants paid to their schools on a capitation basis. Among the acknowledged effects of such an option was the fact that personal salary was not paid by the Department to members of the order teaching in the school (as the capitation grant includes payment in respect of teaching services) and, as a result, they were not pensionable under the statutory superannuation schemes. On the other hand, moneys paid by the Department in respect of teaching services in national schools were subject to income tax where paid as personal salary to individual teachers but not where paid to the conductors of a school as a block capitation grant. It has always been open to the orders conducting these schools to change to the ordinary classification system of funding schools under which personal salary was paid to individual teachers on the staff, whether lay or religious, and their service was pensionable as a result. Where the conductors continued to opt for the capitation system it must be assumed that they did so because they considered that it was in their interest to do so.
It has traditionally been held that the capitation grants paid to the conductors of capitation schools included an element in respect of the superannuation of members of the order teaching in the schools. However, during the consideration of a claim by the Conciliation Council for Teachers in 1975 it was accepted that there was some evidence to suggest that this payment did not represent the full cost of superannuation and that there might be a case that the State had a certain undischarged liability in respect of these teachers. In recognition of this, the council recommended that one half of the service given on the minimum staff of capitation schools by members of religious orders should be reckoned for pension in the case of those whose last five years of service was pensionable under the ordinary rules and whose pensionable service ended on or after 30 June 1974. The council subsequently recommended that this consideration be extended to those with one year of ordinary pensionable service. Both recommendations have been accepted and are being implemented in anticipation of Oireachtas approval of an appropriate amendment to the superannuation schemes. The council did not recommend that service by members of religious orders on the minimum staff of capitation national schools be reckoned as pensionable service per se.
The teacher whose name has been supplied gave service as a member of a religious order on the minimum staff of capitation schools before becoming a lay teacher. One half of this service will be reckoned towards his pension and lump sum when he retires.
This issue has been considered by the Conciliation Council for Teachers on two recent occasions and the agreed recommendations of the council have been accepted on both occasions. I cannot accordingly accept that there is an anomaly to be remedied.
I have no information readily available on the number of teachers, such as the teacher whose name has been supplied, who are in the service and who have in the past given service as members of religious orders on the minimum staff of capitation national schools. The cost of reckoning their capitation service in full for pension purposes would depend on the number retiring each year and the extent of the service they gave in capitation schools.