The individual retired from the Houses of the Oireachtas Service in 2010 under the Cost Neutral Early Retirement Scheme and will reach normal retirement age in March of this year. The Deputy may wish to note that the officer was a Civil Servant and not a direct employee of a Member of the Oireachtas or of a Minister/Minister of State.
Following my reply to Question No. 251 on 24 January, I have since been informed that, under the terms of the Public Sector Transfer Network as they apply in this particular case, the organisation in question is not obliged to make a contribution towards the retirement benefits of the individual in question because the transfer is deemed to be a pre-operative date transfer.
Every organisation in the Transfer Network has its own ‘operative date' which is usually the date the organisation was designated as an ‘approved organisation' for the purpose of Section 4 of the Superannuation and Pensions Act 1963. When it comes to an individual transfer case, the provisions of the Network state that the case must be categorised as being either a pre-operative date or a post-operative date transfer. Such categorisation is determined by the later of the operative dates of the two organisations involved. If the person left the first organisation before that date, the case is deemed to be pre-operative; if s/he left after the operative date, the case is a post-operative one. The scheme provides that organisations are obliged to accept post-operative date transfers, but may refuse to accept those which are pre-operative. However, where an organisation decides to accept a pre-operative date transfer, the scheme states that the former organisation is not obliged to make a contribution to the second organisation. The Civil Service accepts all pre-operative date transfers even though it may not receive a contribution from the previous organisation.