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

The issue of retirement age and supplementary pension for prison officers is very important to me.

As the Minister knows, the pensions of post-1995 prison officers are integrated with the contributory State pension. Pensions of members recruited on or after April 1995 comprise two elements, those being, a partial pension paid by the employer and the contributory State pension. The Prison Officers Association recently raised the matter of the supplementary pension at its annual conference, pointing out that there was a lack of clarity for its members. The Minister is probably aware that the then Minister for Justice, Deputy Harris, wrote to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and to the Minister for Social Protection in an effort to find a resolution to the issue. Policy around public sector pay is a matter for the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and I know that its Minister, Deputy Donohoe, is anxious to see that this issue is sorted. As the situation stands, staff are required upon retirement to attend their local social welfare offices to sign on as being available and looking for work, and in some cases to fulfil the criteria associated with that.

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