Declare start date for pension scheme, says FF

The Government must declare when the lower-paying public service pension scheme will begin operating and ensure it is applied to all new entrants from the same date, Fianna Fáil has said.

The Irish Examiner reported this week that thousands of people have joined the public service since the end of July when the law to set up the new scheme was passed. But they have continued to join the existing pension scheme because it has not yet been started by Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin.

He must sign a commencement order setting the operative date for the new scheme, which could now be the end of the year, before any new public servants are affected. From that date, anyone who does pensionable work in the public service for the first time — or after a break of at least six months — will have their pension calculated on career-average earnings instead of final salary, as applies to existing public servants.

But three months after the Public Service Pensions Act was signed by President Michael D Higgins, Mr Howlin has yet to sign the order. The new scheme was first announced by the last government in the Dec 2009 budget and will save taxpayers up to an estimated €170m a year in pension costs.

Mr Howlin’s department said there were payroll and pension administration changes to be made, which are being prepared with key public service bodies, before he can set the commencement date.

But Fianna Fáil’s expenditure and public reform spokesman, Seán Fleming, said that the Government has been able to cut pay and allowances without a long lead-in time.

“Mr Howlin had trumpeted this to the troika as a major cost-saving measure, but all he has done is commence the element of the act that closed off a loophole in relation to minister’s pensions. I understand that these things take a period of time but I want a date set and for it to be unilaterally introduced across the entire public service,” he said.

Mr Fleming said he is concerned that some departments might implement the changes more quickly than others.

The Department of Expenditure and Public Reform, whose role is to monitor public service spending, doesn’t have records of new entrant numbers and only tracks total employee numbers.

But more than 800 teachers and special-needs assistants have been given first contracts since the end of July.

As well as in education, parts of the health sector may have high numbers of new entrants. The HSE was recruiting 57 social workers in May and had clearance to hire another 10 this year.