Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I agree with Deputies Bruton and Barrett. This is an excellent suggestion. In fact, my Department is in the process of considering improvements to the presentation of the financial statements of Departments and offices. This raises complex issues and will require careful consideration. On pensions, however, the Department and I have decided to include an estimate of the accrued pension liability for the total public service in the annual finance accounts. This will provide a view of the total accrued liabilities in respect of all of the public service. This will be a major addition to the information available on the cost of public service pensions.

On specifying the actuarial cost of each grade in every Department, however, there are hundreds of grades in the Civil Service and six major sets of pension benefits. It would not be appropriate at this stage to undertake to carry out the thousands of complex and separate calculations that would be needed to specify the pension cost at each grade. The actuarial cost of pensions for specimen grades of the public service is calculated as required, for example, as part of the recent benchmarking body exercise. I would be open, in addition to providing for the total accrued liabilities as part of the financial accounts, to give some information on the specimen grades.

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