Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I ask the Minister to update the House on the number of public servants who have decided to take the Government's offer of early retirement and the number of public servants, including people such as principal teachers, who are retiring and in some cases have full service so they are not part of this special offer. Has the Minister examined whether he will proceed with the suggestion which arose from the chairman of An Bord Snip Nua, that the lump sum payment received by public servants would be subject to taxation? Has this been the subject of any paper or research?What is the annual cost of lump sum payments? If the Minister is proposing to tax them, would it be on the same basis as the taxation of redundancy and retirement payments in the private sector? It should be remembered that somebody who has built up a private sector pension can receive 25%. In the case of Mr. Fingleton, whose pension pot was approximately €30 million, he was entitled to take approximately one quarter of that tax free. Is the Minister proposing that public and private sector treatment of redundancy and retirement payments would be treated the same? What is the Minister proposing in that regard?

See this speech in context