Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 408: To ask the Minister for Defence the saving to the Exchequer if all existing public service pension payments to former employees of State agencies under the aegis of his Department were capped at €35,000 per year. [29777/11]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The only non-commercial State bodies in this context under my Department's aegis are the Army Pensions Board and Civil Defence Board. The payment of public service pensions to any former civil service employees who worked with those bodies would be a matter for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Any savings from capping such pensions on the basis referred to would therefore be included in the figures already provided by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in his reply to the Deputy in Question No. 297 on the 4 October 2011. While the Permanent Defence Force is not a State agency in the usual meaning of the term, the savings if military pensions were capped at €35,000 a year are estimated at some €6.0 million annually. This reflects the impact of the Public Service Pension Reduction under the provisions introduced by the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2010 from 1 January 2011. It should be borne in mind that the Exchequer would only receive a proportion of those savings in net terms, as income tax and other statutory deductions such as the universal social charge would be foregone if such a measure were implemented.