Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

This is a discussion about the chasm between a defined right, entitlement or status as a member of the public service, whether on paid or unpaid leave, and a mere expectation that having relinquished and resigned from that position, one should have a special recognised legislative right to be treated unlike anybody else by virtue simply of the fact that one had served 15 years in the public service. There are lateral mobility schemes within the public service and various arrangements to encourage the many desirable personnel schemes which the Minister extols.

This amendment provides that a former public servant who has had at least 15 years service should not be treated as a new entrant upon rejoining the Civil Service. The whole purpose of the legislation in providing for a new entrant is to provide for a revised pension arrangement for public servants in the light of the Pensions Commission report.

A person who has at least 15 years service in the public service already has accrued to himself or herself a preserved pension and that is not affected by this legislation in any way. By virtue of his or her departure from the public service, they re-enter the public service in that contingency as a new entrant and acquire a pension in that context. There is a fundamental distinction between the status of a person who has a continued employment relationship and a person who has severed the employment relationship.

The amendment proposed by the Senator would have the effect that any former public servant who had at least 15 years prior service could rejoin the public service at any time after 31 March 2004 without being treated as a new entrant, regardless of the length of time between the ending of their former service and commencement of their new period of service. For those reasons I cannot accept the amendment.