Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As I indicated on Committee Stage, I have great sympathy for the point made by the Deputy. It always has been the structure of public service pay negotiations that representatives of the pensioners are not involved formally. While this always has been the way, going back as long as one cares to look, I was concerned there was an impact on pensioners to which one should listen. This is why, on meeting the various disparate groups at the beginning of this process, I suggested to them they should co-ordinate and have a single overarching pensioner representative committee. In fairness to them, they did just that and I told them that if they did so, I would meet them, which I did. As my officials kept in touch with them throughout the Lansdowne Road discussions, they were involved.

As for pension reduction, it was determined in the Haddington Road process as appropriate and just that were pay to be cut for those on €65,000, the analogous pension rate, which was €32,500, also would make a small contribution to the financial emergency because that relates to a pay rate of €65,000 and above. Obviously, this was done on a sliding scale, whereby very highly-paid pensioners were asked to pay proportionately much more. At the top level of the additional pension contribution I required from high-paid pensioners, I went as far as the constitutional advice I had would allow me, because one must be careful not to expropriate a property right, in order that they were making a proportionate contribution in the national interest to an emergency and its resolution. This was the architecture on which the Government determined. When it came to the Lansdowne Road agreement and pay restitution, I thought equally that the pension restitution mechanism should mirror the pay restitution mechanism. As some pensioners were concerned they would not get a look-in at such a resolution, I made it clear they also would get pension restitution.

To deal with the specific amendment before Members, the Deputy seeks a formal report. I do not believe that should be written into legislation but I am happy to give information to the Deputy. As the Deputy has readily acknowledged, I gave the information he has requested in a response to a parliamentary question yesterday. Consequently, he does not need legislation to acquire such information as a simple parliamentary question or a telephone call would have prompted me to give the information to him. As the Deputy will recall in the aforementioned reply - he has put it on the record - based on the data available there are approximately 32,500 public service pensions in payment that exceed the €34,132 threshold. I thought it serendipitous that the actual number of pensioners is 32,500, which in my mind was the rate that was half the €65,000 pay threshold. It is interesting to note that in percentage terms, this is approximately 20% of all public service pensions. In essence, my point is the restoration that will happen over the next three years will be full restoration for 80% of all pensioners, that is, 80% of all pensioners will get full pension restoration during the course of the next three years.

I do not wish to be macabre or maudlin about it but am mindful that, as the pensioner representatives made clear to me, their urgency might be greater than someone who is working, in terms of what one might call their horizon of existence. It was for this reason that I indicated during the Committee Stage debate that while this legislation was negotiated during 2015, when the Lansdowne Road agreement was finalised in May, circumstances were not as good as they are now. Please God and with a steady hand on the tiller for the next year or so, matters will improve again next year and I am minded, having regard to the strong case made by the Deputy and the case made by the pensioner representatives, that if the opportunity arises, the Government might look again at the pension case for the balance of pensioners. However, I should make the point to the Deputy that when it comes to full pension restoration to that category at the very top, there will be difficult decisions to be made by whoever is at the tiller at that stage, because I do not believe there is a clamour, political or otherwise, for pension restoration for those in receipt of what in the cold light of day look like extraordinarily high pensions. I am happy to provide the Deputy with any information he needs but it is not necessary and I certainly am not minded to put that into legislation.

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