People who are in receipt of a British pension may also be entitled to a non-contributory pension from my Department. However, the UK pension must be taken into account as means for the purpose of determining their entitlement to the Irish pension.
The means assessment for non-contributory pensioners disregards the first £6 in weekly means and thereafter the means are in effect assessed in £2 bands. Accordingly people who have a British pension assessed as means and who receive a reduced rate non-contributory pension receive in aggregate more than a person who has no means. The banding arrangements also ensures that small adjustments in weekly means do not typically require an immediate and corresponding change in the rate of non-contributory pension payable. The general £6 disregard is a concession which ensures that there is no inequitable treatment in these cases when they are compared with the majority of pensioners.
When calculating means for non-contributory pension purposes, British pensioners' Sterling income must be converted to Irish Punts. Even within the EC Exchange Rate Mechanism, there are frequent and sometimes wide fluctuations in EC exchange rates. It would not be practicable to frequently recalculate pensioners' means based upon the rate of exchange prevailing at any point in time.
In order to reflect a reasonable pattern of exchange rates, an average exchange rate system is used for converting EC pensions to Irish Punts. For this purpose, my Department uses figures which are provided by the Administrative Commission of European Communities on Social Security and Migrant Workers. These average exchange rates for each EC currency are published quarterly by the Commission in the Official Journal of the European Community.