Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

We understand all that. Perhaps the Minister is not happy with the level of public sector pensions, but we will come to that later. If the Minister wants to cut current public service pensions, he must bring forward proposals, but will not get much support on that. If it is the Department's view that previous arrangements have given the public sector grade of workers to whom we have been referring too big a pension, so be it.

The representatives of the unions say that according to the pension experts they consulted, Trident Consultants, it is not the case that these workers will be no worse off. They say the workers will be worse off and say this is very unfair, on account of the fast accruals group and the early retirement age for this sector for operational reasons. None of us wants to see 68 year old gardaí on duty at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning or soldiers, prison officers or fire brigade officers of that age trying to perform onerous duties. There is a good reason for early retirement for these sectors, due to the nature of their work. These people are not looking for any enhanced terms, but want to be assured they will not be disadvantaged under the new arrangement. The formula for dealing with their arrangement is different because of their particular situation.

To return to the chart referred to in the Minister's letter, the comparison is made with only one person. The clerical officer who serves his full career as a clerical officer will have no reduction in pension under the new scheme. His pension will be 100% because of his career average. However, the uniformed prison officer, who retires after 33 years as a prison officer, will only receive a pension of 81%. Therefore, it is clear the clerical officer comes out with a full pension, but a prison officer who spends his entire career, including the extra three years, as a prison officer, will come out with only 81%. The Minister may say that the reduction for assistant principal officers is of the same order, but in the example given by the Minister, the assistant principal has only spent 18 years in that position. The majority of his career was at a lower level so his career average would be less than had he been constantly at the higher grade for his full career.

Therefore, the chart the Minister gave us yesterday further reinforces the point being made by the prison officers, the Garda, the soldiers, the fire brigade people and SIPTU. We had a presentation at our Oireachtas committee some months ago on this area and it was very useful. We also had representatives from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Association in who made a similar case. They gave an example of the case of a higher executive officer who will get a pension of somewhere between 85% and 91% of current pension when we move onto the new arrangements. They say the multiplier for fast accrual grades under the proposed new single scheme will only bring the pension of a prison officer to 80%. The Minister confirmed this would be 81% in the chart he presented last night. However, the pension of a clerical officer who remains at the same grade throughout his career will not be affected at all. He will retire on the same pension.

A person who gets no promotion during his career and who retires on the same grade after 43 years should not be affected by the new scheme, because the career average salary is close to final salary. The same comparison does not apply to people who get promotion, as illustrated by the examples for every other grade on the chart, executive officer, higher executive officer, assistant principal grades and others. They are not directly comparable, so they make the point that the addition of the fast accruals makes their situation relatively worse compared to others even though they know everybody is, to some extent, worse off. That is why I asked the Minister - maybe by way of avoiding the interminable debate we could have on this matter - to publish a report on the implications of this. We got the message loud and clear on Committee Stage that the Minister was pressing ahead. He rejected our views on that matter. Unfortunately, I am taking it as a fait accompli that the Bill will pass today without the amendment Deputy McDonald proposed which would delete the section dealing with this issue. On the basis the Minister is determined to push this through, we want to see a report within six months on the actual implications and more worked out examples.

We got something from the public sector employees, who are competent people, through their trade unions, and we must accept what they say at face value but we also want to test what they say. There is only one line in that whole report dealing with people on the fast accruals basis. If the legislation is passed - we suspect it will be - we would like to see a report in a few months time analysing this in further detail. That should not be an undue burden on the Department and it is something to which we ask the Minister to agree. He does not need to include it in the legislation but he can give a commitment to come back with a detailed report on this matter before the end of the year.

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