The purposes of this Bill are:
(i) to extend to the ESB general staff an improvement in superannuation benefits already enjoyed by the board's manual staff.
(ii) to eliminate any doubt which might arise as to the powers of the ESB to accord equal rank to all their borrowings.
Before proceeding to the individual sections of the Bill I should like to mention that the proposed amendments in sections 2 and 3 of the Bill are identical to those contained in sections 3 and 4 of the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act, 1970, except that the two sections in the 1970 Act are in respect of manual employees while the two sections in the present Bill concern the general employees.
Section 2 of the Bill provides for the addition of a further subsection—subsection 9—to section 7 of the 1942 Act. The General Employees' Superannuation Scheme came into operation on 1st April, 1943. Where a general employee entered the board's service after 1st April, 1943, his service up to the date he was admitted to the scheme was not reckonable for superannuation purposes. Section 2 of the Bill defines this service as "previous service" and enables the board to reckon half of it for superannuation purposes.
Section 3 of the Bill enables the board to pay a supplementary allowance equal to the full pension value of the other half of a general employees previous service provided that the employees involved make a nominal contribution towards the cost of such an allowance.
Section 4 of the Bill refers to the borrowing powers of the ESB. Up to the time of the passing of the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act, 1954, the board's capital requirements were borrowed from the Central Fund. All such borrowings under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1927, and subsequent Acts carried with them either specific or floating charges on ESB property. Under section 4 of the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act, 1954, the board were empowered to make their own arrangements for getting, direct from the public or otherwise, the capital required to finance their development and since then no money has been borrowed by the board from the Central Fund.
Section 4 (3) of the 1954 Act provided that the terms upon which capital is borrowed by the ESB may include provisions charging the moneys borrowed on the property of the board and also permitted the inclusion of provisions under which any charge in respect of money borrowed under the 1954 Act may rank before or equal with charges on the board's assets in respect of borrowings from the Central Fund. In fact, however, the ESB did not give any charges on their property in respect of borrowings under the 1954 Act and they do not envisage the giving of such charges in respect of future borrowings. As a consequence, the board are now advised that technically these borrowings under the 1954 Act cannot be ranked equally with the loans from the Central Fund in respect of which, as I have stated, a specific or floating charge on the board's assets was created under the Electricity Supply Acts. It was, however, the intention of the board that moneys borrowed under the 1954 Act would rank equally with loans from the Central Fund and the purpose of section 4 is to establish this position in law.