Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Question 360: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if progress has been made regarding the transferability of teachers' pensions between here and the Six Counties, where teachers worked in both jurisdictions, in the context of the Good Friday Agreement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33377/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The North-South Ministerial Council agreed at a sectoral meeting in February 2000 that a joint working group on teachers' superannuation should be set up to consider the question of transferring the superannuation entitlements of teachers between this State and Northern Ireland.

The working group has identified a range of options for effecting transfer arrangements. The group is fully aware that the superannuation arrangements of teachers cannot be considered in isolation and that any arrangements proposed in the case of teachers will have to have full regard to the costs and other implications for employers in the public sector generally. In this context, the North-South Ministerial Council, which established the group, decided at its plenary meeting on 28 June 2002, that a broad-based working group should be set up to consider the question of superannuation generally, including the mobility of pension rights not only between this jurisdiction and Northern Ireland but between this jurisdiction and the wider United Kingdom. The North-South Ministerial Council was suspended, however, before it could formally establish the broad-based group.

Pending a return to devolution and the establishment of the broad-based working group, it is unlikely that any arrangements for North-South transfers can be finalised.

I should add that the College of Commissioners of the European Union has recently proposed that a directive be made by the European Parliament regarding the portability of pension rights between member states. These proposals will be taken account of by the joint working group on teachers' superannuation.