Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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155. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to comply with a Labour Court recommendation on the issue of pension provision for community employment supervisors; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36780/14]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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156. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the law in relation to mandatory retirement for community employment supervisors; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36781/14]

Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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168. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the position regarding a matter in relation to community employment supervisors in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Limerick; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36990/14]

Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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169. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the issue of retiring community employment supervisors; her plans to allow community employment supervisors and assistants to work beyond the age of 66; her plans to introduce a pension for retiring community employment supervisors and assistants; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36995/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 155, 156, 168 and 169 together.

With regard to the pension, issue, in July 2008, the Labour Court recommended that an agreed pension scheme should be introduced for Community Employment (CE) scheme supervisors and assistant supervisors (LCR19293) and that such a scheme should be adequately funded by FÁS, the agency responsible for CE at that time. The Department of Social Protection is now responsible for CE.

Notwithstanding the position of this Department in rejecting that liability for these costs should be met from public funds, this matter has been the subject of discussions with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the unions representing CE supervisors. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has stated to the unions that companies contracted by the State to provide a service, including in the community sector, will have to manage their expenditure pressures, including labour and pension costs, from within existing funding levels.

Given the level of funding that would be required from this Department, the implementation of the claim is not considered sustainable in light of the current and on-going fiscal environment and the requirement to contain public expenditure. The costs of the introduction of any scheme are likely to be of the order of €3m per annum, with retrospective costs of the order of at least €39m. In this context, it should be noted that the Supervisors and Sponsors have made nocontribution towards the cost of the pension arrangements they are currently seeking from the Department.

It should also be noted that this Department is not the employer of CE supervisors and such employees are not public servants but are employees of the sponsoring organisations. The responsibilities of the sponsoring organisations and the individuals concerned must also be recognised when considering pension provision arrangements.

Employers (including CE Sponsoring Organisations) are legally obliged to offer access to at least one Standard Personal Retirement Savings Account (PRSA) under the Pension (Amendment) Act 2002. All CE sponsoring organisations were informed by the Department of their responsibilities under this Act at that time.

CE Supervisors may also qualify for the State Pension at 66 years of age. If they have accrued sufficient PRSI contributions (520 contributions @ full rate, equivalent to 10 years contributions) they will qualify for the State Pension (Contributory), which is not means-tested. In the event that there are insufficient contributions, the person will qualify for the State Pension (Non-Contributory), provided they satisfy the means test.

With regard to the retirement age, the Department does not provide funding for any participant or supervisor who has reached the State Pension age. This has been Government policy since CE commenced in April 1994 as a working-age specific, active labour market intervention. The CE Procedures Manual does notform part of the direct terms and conditions of employment for supervisors or participants, but they do outline the conditions under which the Department will fund the Sponsoring Organisation for the CE positions (under Article 1 of the CE Agreement Contract signed by the Sponsor and the Department). The Department reserves the right to amend the Procedures Manual as and when required, as per Article 1.

The details of the employment contract issued by the Sponsoring Organisation are a matter between the CE Sponsor as the employer and the Supervisor, as the employee. The Department advises the Sponsoring Organisation to include retirement arrangements in any contractual agreements with employees of the scheme, including CE Supervisor, so that all parties are aware of the conditions under which funding is provided. Where a Sponsor has other financial resources and wishes to continue to retain the employment of a Supervisor who has reached State Pension age, the Department has no issue with this arrangement.

Under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994 and 2001, an employer is legally obliged to provide certain information in written form, including:

- In the case of a temporary contract of employment, the expected duration thereof or, if the contract of employment is for a fixed term, the date on which the contract expires.

All CE Supervisor contracts are of a temporary, fixed-term nature and legally cannot be of indefinite duration, due to the fact that their contracts of employment have been “concluded within the framework of a specific public, or publicly supported training, integration or vocational retraining programme” under Section 2 of the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003.

The cessation of the funding as outlined above has previously been tested under equality legislation and has been found to be compliant and in accordance with the provisions of Section 6 of the Employment Equality Acts, 1998-2004.