Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My point is that the Minister met them after the legislation was published. Public service pensioners were not included in any discussion before the Haddington Road agreement and the legislation were published on Thursday last. The meetings took place after publication. Moreover, the list of Committee Stage amendments does not feature any amendments from the Minister. If no changes are to be made to the legislation, clearly the views of public service pensioners are considered irrelevant. Opposition spokespersons have drawn up amendments to address the issue of public service pensioners and while they may differ in content, all of them reflect the same general principles.

I specifically wrote to Mr. Kieran Mulvey before his proposals were published requesting that he refuse to include any reference in the proposed new agreement on public sector pay to matters that did not form part of the negotiations. While Mr. Mulvey has done a fine job in reaching nine individual agreements with different sectors, it was not necessary for him to provide cover - to whom I do not know - by including a reference to public service pensions. He should have taken the view that it is the Government's prerogative to legislate for cuts in public service pensions. He did not include a reference to targeted redundancies in the agreement o the basis that this matter will be the subject of a Government decision. Public service pensions and redundancy schemes were not negotiated as part of the Haddington Road agreement. I presume the reference to public service pensions was included at the request of one or two people to make it easier to sell the agreement to different people. Public service pensioners were used as pawns and they feel aggrieved as a result.

I and several party colleagues met a number of representatives of public service pensioners who expressed the view that they had been unfairly treated as a result of being excluded from the negotiation process. Meeting them at this stage is a case of too little, too late. I am surprised by the number of people who contacted me about this issue over the weekend, not so much in my role as my party spokesperson but as a constituency Deputy. One normally recognises a structured e-mail because one receives exactly the same e-mail from 20 or 30 people. However, the many telephone calls and messages I received from people over the weekend were clearly spontaneous as they related to individual circumstances. They were not inspired by any national organisation because public service pensioners do not have a strong national organisation.

These are the views of individual public service pensioners.

The Minister stated that the single public service pension scheme was introduced last year. The aim of this scheme is, by and large, to reduce the cost of public service pensions for new recruits into the future. When it was brought forward, there was a clear understanding that current public servants would not be affected. There is, however, one provision in the relevant legislation which gives the Minister power to adjust public service pensions in payment to 1% of inflation. This provision has not yet been implemented but-----

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