The person named was admitted to the early retirement scheme in 1995 under a joint management arrangement with her husband. It is a condition of the scheme that participants must apply, on reaching their 66th birthday, to the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs for both the contributory and non-contributory old-age pension. This condition also applies to participants' partners in a joint management application. If a pension is awarded it must be offset against the farm retirement pension. Participants in the scheme are told of this condition when they join, and they are required to notify my Department if they or their partners in joint management are awarded an old-age pension.
The reason an overpayment occurred in this case was that my Department was not made aware of the position until several months after the husband of the person named became eligible for a national old-age pension. My Department is obliged to recover all overpayments under the scheme, which is 75% funded by the European Union. However, my Department is conscious that the repayments may be onerous and it is for that reason that they have been spread over 24 months whereas the overpayment itself took place over a much shorter period. As it is, the overpayment referred to will not be recovered until the end of January 2002 whereas the person named will be eligible to apply for an old age pension in February 2001. If she becomes entitled to the old age pension, the offset of both old age pensions against the early retirement pension will greatly reduce the scope for recovery of the overpayment from the balance of the pension under the early retirement scheme. For that reason, my Department sees no scope for spreading the recovery of the overpayments over a longer period without jeopardising its obligations with regard to EU funds.
