Vol. 543 No. 2
319 Mr. Currie asked the Minister for Finance if, in a pension scheme for which his Department has responsibility, there is a provision on the death of a pensioner for payments to be made to a dependant who is permanently, physically or mentally incapacitated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26606/01]
I am directly responsible for the superannuation schemes for established civil servants and for non-established State employees. Under these schemes, on the death of a pensioner who was a member of the relevant spouses' and children's scheme, pensions are payable to the surviving eligible spouse and eligible children. For the purposes of these schemes, a child is defined as a person under 16 years of age or a person under 22 years of age who is undergoing full-time edu cation or training within the terms of the relevant scheme. The definition of a child also includes a person who is permanently incapacitated by reason of mental or physical infirmity from maintaining himself or herself and who when the incapacity first occurred was a child as defined above, that is, under the age of 16 or 22 years as the case may be; in such cases no age limit applies to the pension.
Under the terms of the Superannuation Act, 1956, an established civil servant may surrender part of his or her pension to provide a pension for a nominated beneficiary. The nominated beneficiary may be the person's spouse, father, mother, stepfather, stepmother, son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, stepson, stepdaughter, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, son-in-law or daughter-in-law. The allocation can be made in favour of one person only and the allocated amount is payable only if the civil servant dies after retirement on pension. Normally, the civil servant will be retiring on grounds of age and notice of allocation must be given more than six calander months before the date of retirement; a civil servant retiring on grounds of ill-health is not permitted to make an allocation of pension.
