Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Community employment, CE, supervisors remain without pension entitlements. This is a long-running issue that has not been addressed. I have been contacted regularly by a number of CE supervisors in my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny who feel very left behind. Why, after more than ten years, do they remain without a pension? A deep sense of frustration is felt by the CE supervisors and assistant supervisors in their efforts to secure an occupational pension. The State hires these supervisors and, to all intents and purposes, employs them. We need this issue to be sorted once and for all.

Promises were made but two judgements are being ignored - one historic and one recent. The first is the 2008 Labour Court recommendation that the funding agency was a statutory body of the Government and had responsibility for the CE supervisors' pensions, and, more recently, a report by the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, which indicates a responsibility on the State's part to provide a pension. This judgement is available on the WRC website. There are talks going on and we should have a solution.

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