Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In recent years, because we have been going through a process of unwinding the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, there was an issue that impacted on a large number of public service workers. The salary of a serving public service employee had to reach the level of the salary which formed the basis of the pension for the pensioner who was in payment. Until these had begun to match each other, as they now have in the overwhelming majority of cases, a lot of pensioners were not getting increases because the reversal of the measures took a period of time. We are now at a point, having pretty much achieved full restoration of the position pre-FEMPI, that the salaries of the existing employees have reached or exceeded the salaries on which the pensions of the pensioners are based. From this point onwards, in general terms, any increases in public service pay in general rounds are passed on to the pensioner as well. There was a gap period because of FEMPI and the outworking of that but that has essentially washed through the system at this point.

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