Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 123:

In page 20, to delete lines 23 to 26 and substitute the following: “(5) As soon as may be after the commencement of this section, the Agency shall prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme or schemes for the granting of superannuation benefits to or in respect of persons appointed under subsection (1) and persons who were accepted into the employment of the Agency in accordance with section 36 and the Minister may, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, approve the scheme or schemes.”.

Amendments Nos. 123 and 124 amend section 20 to provide for standard provisions relating to the establishment of a pension scheme for the staff of the agency. Any scheme set up by the LDA will be in line with pension schemes for other commercial State agencies and will require the consent of the Ministers for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Public Expenditure and Reform. These provisions are similar to provisions for other State agencies.

Amendment No. 135 amends section 36 to provide for transitional arrangements arising from the dissolution of the existing body and the transfer of staff from existing superannuation schemes into a new pension scheme. The staff of the LDA are currently in either the single public service pension scheme or an interim LDA pension scheme, depending on whether they had previous service with another public sector body. This was always a transitional arrangement until the legislation was enacted.

Amendment No. 232 inserts a new section 79 to provide that the LDA will be added to the Schedule to the Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Act 2012 as a body to which the definition of public service body for the purposes of that Act does not apply. This amendment is required to provide that employees of the LDA are no longer members of the public service pension scheme. This is in line with arrangements for other commercial State bodies whose employees are in pension schemes associated with the commercial State body rather than the single scheme.

These amendments are technical in nature and provide further details relating to the provision of pensions for the staff of the LDA, as well as dealing with other pension-related issues relating to the transition of the LDA from the existing entity to the new fully commercial State body. They provide that when the new LDA entity is established, it will set up a new pension scheme and the staff will transfer out of their existing pension schemes to the new scheme. All staff are fully aware of this and were informed of these transitional arrangements when they took up employment with the LDA.