Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 1446: To ask the Minister for Defence the reasons for the continued delay in awarding pension increases, including one third of the national wage agreement and 25 per cent of the total benchmarking award, due to Defence Forces retirees as and from 1 December 2005, and as promised in an information booklet issued to them by his Department in 2005; and when these awards will be made. [28698/06]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that this question relates to pension increases due to retired civilian employees of my Department. I should explain that the Office of the Paymaster General, Department of Finance, is responsible, upon the receipt from my Department of the pension rate in each particular case, for the payment of pensions to retired employees. Over the past number of months, my Department has undertaken a review of the rates of pension paid to retired civilian employees. The need for the review arose because of a circular issued by the Department of Finance outlining a revised formula for the calculation of pension rates. This is a time-consuming process, where the level of pension awarded to each retired civilian employee has to be re-calculated.

To ensure that this major undertaking was completed as soon as possible, additional staff were assigned for a number of months to work on a dedicated basis in this area. In many cases, the review has resulted in increased levels of pension being awarded to the retired employees. In addition, the opportunity has been taken to apply the benefits of any outstanding pay agreements to the levels of pension. At this stage, the review of a majority of the cases has been completed and the revised rates for the pensioners concerned have been notified to the Office of the Paymaster General for payment. It is anticipated that the review of the pension rates awarded to the remaining pensioners will be completed shortly.