State agency pension costs at €61.4m

Combined pension costs across all State agencies amounted to just under €61.4m last year, and, nearly 80% of the Oireachtas grant given to trade advisory board Forfas was hoovered up by pension costs.

According to Forfas’ latest annual report — published yesterday — its annual grant increased by 15.5% to €51.4m, last year, 78% of which went towards the funding of pensions across its own workers and those in Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and their preceding agencies.

In all, the €61.4m pension cost figure was up from a figure of €60.4m from the previous year.