Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

It is extra information but I am simply dissecting it so that people will not take the view that the issues are directly related. The Minister should move on the matter sooner or later.

I understand the Minister wishes to exclude certain commercial bodies. The Schedule to the Bill refers to bodies to which the definition of "public service bodies" does not apply. These include any body corporate established by Act or Parliament before 6 December 2002 which, upon its establishment, was of a commercial character. We understand the Minister is not including the commercial semi-State companies but I seek answers on some specific bodies to be included in the course of the legislation. The first such body is Anglo Irish Bank. We would freak out if it was included in the new legislation. However, given that Allied Irish Banks, AIB, is 99% owned by the Exchequer, I call on the Minister to clarify whether those in AIB, Irish Nationwide, Permanent TSB, Irish Life and EBS are similarly excluded, and whether those from Anglo Irish Bank are excluded because each of these organisations has been taken into effective State control. Will the Minister clarify the position for organisations such as Teagasc? It carries out a good deal of commercial activity but I am unsure of its commercial status. What is the position for organisations such as the National Gallery and the Zoological Gardens? These are commercial organisations but I do not see them listed in the Schedule. Perhaps they are somewhere in-between because they get a considerable amount of State funding but they have commercial income as well.

Will the Minister clarify the position for foster parents working for the HSE? I refer to people who are long-term foster parents. Some of these people have been fostering for 30 or 40 years. They have looked after different children and they have a good name. Effectively, they are in receipt of long-term payments from the HSE. Are such people categorised as employees? Will they fall under the scheme? What is the position for new foster parents in future and those who carry out home help? Will the Minister clarify the status for these people? There are other organisations funded by public bodies which are partly commercial. I have in mind new child care facilities which are paid the early child care supplement. Some of these facilities are fully funded by the supplement and are in a position similar to that of schools. While they have an intermediate board of management, the Department pays salaries as an agent for the board of management. Will the Minister clarify the position pertaining to child care facilities which are effectively fully funded and paid for through Exchequer grants even though they have a local management committee? Will he also clarify whether nursing homes which are fully funded by the Exchequer on the basis that all their patients fall within the fair deal scheme will also be covered by the scheme?

I am sure the legislation has provisions dealing with public servants who take a break in service or work under term time or job sharing arrangements. Forty years down the line we could have a Greek scenario here with public servants engaging in strikes or industrial disputes. Thankfully, we have not had many industrial disputes in the public service because relations have been good over the years. What would be the position if an extended industrial dispute, such as those which occurred in An Post and other public bodies, were to arise in the public service or Health Service Executive?

What pension provisions will apply in the event that a public body is privatised, as was the case with Eircom? Other arms of the State may be privatised in due course. What will be the position when the reverse occurs, namely, a private sector organisation is taken into State ownership? This has occurred in the case of the major banks. What pension provisions will apply to the employees of such organisations?

How many bodies will be responsible for the payment of public service pensions? At present, the HSE, local authorities and Departments all have responsibilities in this regard. The Minister has an opportunity to establish a single, centralised pension payment body for the public service. It does not make sense that finance officers in each of the county councils make separate arrangements for the payment of pensions to former staff. Likewise, each Department has separate arrangements for staff, for instance, teachers and employees of the HSE. A case can be made for making one body responsible for pension payments. It would be a more efficient and streamlined system. If one body, the Department of Social Protection, can pay the old age State pension to all pensioners, there is no reason one organisation could not handle pension payments for retired public servants. I ask the Minister to consider my proposal. While it may not be part of the Croke Park agreement, there is no reason the Minister should not pursue such a reform as the introduction of one pension payment management system would be beneficial.

On additional voluntary contributions, I have heard many complaints from teachers who had sought to make up their years following breaks in service. Although the payments they made were deducted from payroll through the Department of Education and Skills, they were forced to use a private pension provider. I will not name the companies in question. If a centralised pensions management system were in place, the Minister could introduce a mechanism to enable additional voluntary contributions to be paid into the Exchequer rather than private sector companies. I understand the Taoiseach stated in the House yesterday that the management fees and commissions charged by pension companies are disgraceful in terms of people accruing their pension rights. When a person comes to draw down his or her pension, as much as one third of the fund he or she has accumulated will have disappeared because management fees of as much as 2.5% per annum will have been applied. Is there a case, in the interests of efficiency in the public service, to have additional voluntary contributions paid into the Exchequer? The actuarial valuation could then be applied to such payments when the pension is paid out. This would prevent public servants who wish to obtain additional years or build up a faster accrual as a result of being appointed to a post in later years being ripped off by the private sector.

If the Minister can introduce a single pension scheme for public servants, he must consider introducing further legislation to introduce a single contract of employment for public servants. I accept that not all organisations are the same. Let us take the example of local authorities to which the Minister referred. Some local authority staff have five more days' annual holiday than others. Over 40 years, such staff will enjoy one extra year in holidays than their counterparts in other local authorities while receiving a full pension based on 40 years' service. This does not make sense. Standardisation of contracts would be beneficial.

We all remember the debacle in the Health Service Executive some years ago when the famous PPARS system was introduced in an attempt to computerise the payroll and pensions of employees in the HSE. Approximately one third of the organisation had been covered before the previous chief executive officer of the HSE called a halt to the process on the basis of its prohibitive costs. The cost of computerisation was extraordinary because the previous system was a shambles. This was the logical outcome of computerising a system that was a mess. The PPARS system identified 2,800 different payment arrangements in the HSE. Approximately 38 different payment arrangements were in place for the porters who open and close the doors of hospitals. Different arrangements applied to the guys in Limerick Regional Hospital, Ennis General Hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital and Loughlinstown Hospital, even though they were all doing the same job in the same public body. In one hospital, they may have been given a day off on a holy day whereas the same staff in another hospital may have been given three hours off to go to mass before returning to do a split shift. In one hospital, a staff member may have been given two days off if his or her mother died whereas staff in another hospital may have been given one day off for the same reason. The different local arrangements and ridiculous anomalies in various public bodies need to be rationalised. It used to be part of the terms of employment of staff in Kildare County Council, for example, to be given a half day off to attend the Punchestown Festival. Many other daft arrangements apply. I ask the Minister to consider the introduction of a standard contract.

I accept the Minister's view that the pension levy does not form part of the contributions towards individual pensions. Teachers' representatives made a serious case in that regard but the Minister has answered it factually. On pensions generally, the Comptroller and Auditor General has qualified the accounts of a number of organisations, many of which are commercial State bodies. He has drawn up a schedule and I ask that officials of the Department contact his office to obtain a copy of it. The overwhelming number of qualifications he has given on accounts for public bodies in recent years were made on the basis of inadequate provision for the pension fund. The House is debating pensions. All the Minister needs to do is ask for the list of organisations for which the Comptroller and Auditor General has issued qualifications to his audit reports. He has stated the accounts of the organisations in question do not give a true and fair representation in accordance with the law because of deficiencies in the pension fund arrangements. This matter must be examined to ascertain whether it has implications for the Minister's proposals. An estimate of the costs involved is required because last year the Department unilaterally agreed to assume responsibility for the pension entitlements of the staff of third level colleges, including university professors. This will create substantial costs. Many similar issues arise and all these matters must be examined in greater detail before Committee Stage.

The Minister stated the provision in the legislation regarding a CPI link to public service pensions is an enabling provision and the matter has not yet been decided. My party has difficulty giving the Minister power to introduce a measure without reverting to the House with further primary legislation. It is difficult to secure changes to a measure if the means of introducing it is by statutory instrument. Given that 300,000 people work in the public service, the national Parliament must sign off on any legislation making changes to their entitlements. While I accept the enabling provision has been included in the Bill in good faith, the failure to have changes implemented publicly and transparently in the House is not a good way to do business.

I propose to raise a few points regarding the explanatory memorandum. I am intrigued by the following statement: "Section 9 (Scheme and membership)provides for the establishment of the single scheme and describes to whom it applies, i.e. all public servants other than those under 16 or over 70 or those who do not qualify as scheme members under section 10." What public servants are aged under 16 years? I understood it was illegal to employ persons aged under 16 years.

Section 11, which deals with the pensionability of allowances and emoluments related to payments, provides that only permanent payments will be considered pensionable. I would like to see a list of the allowances the Minister will include as pensionable. I realise people must make a contribution. It emerged at the Committee of Public Accounts that until recently, at several Army depots throughout the country, new recruits were being given a Border duty allowance because their barracks was within a certain number of miles of the Border. There has been no Border duty by the Irish Defences Forces in many years yet long after it stopped it appears some people still receive a permanent allowance. The Minister might address some of those points.

Regarding section 19 the Minister provides the full details of the figure of 45,000, which he states is too complicated to follow. Perhaps somewhere on the public record he will describe how the Labour Relations Commission arrived at this figure. It must have had a consultants' report because I do not believe the LRC has any expertise in this area. I would love to know who it paid to give what advice. That needs to be examined as do most similar situations.

On section 28, concerning retirement on medical grounds, the Minister provided a clear example. I ask him to take this point on board. The whole principle of the legislation relates to "career average". I understand the good nature of the people who drafted the legislation. The current position is that if a person is retiring on medical grounds he or she can receive up to seven extra years of service. However, that seven years will be calculated according to the most recent, full-year, referable amount, namely, current salary, and not on the career average. There is a tremendous incentive, therefore, for a person promoted to the highest level because he or she will now be able to receive seven extra years at that highest level of salary. That runs utterly counter to the principle.

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