Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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19. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of persons who have retired from the public service and Civil Service under Government voluntary early retirement and voluntary redundancy schemes since 2008; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11694/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Regarding early retirement, in May 2009, the Incentivised Scheme of Early Retirement (ISER) allowed public servants of 50 years of age and older to retire early and receive an immediate pension based on their service to date.  10% of the retirement lump sum was paid at departure, with the 90% balance payable on reaching preserved pension age. The normal actuarial-calculated financial reduction applied to pension benefits of people retiring early was waived under this scheme.  The number of people who left the Public Service under this scheme was about 1,000, as recorded on a full-time equivalent basis.

In 2010, an early retirement scheme and a voluntary redundancy scheme were introduced specifically for the HSE. Under these two programmes, more than 1,600 people availed of these two schemes, recorded on a full-time equivalent positions.  

Later, in 2012, the Government decided that voluntary redundancy could be introduced in certain targeted areas of the Public Service where there continued to be staff surpluses.  Since then, our latest data shows that just over 900 staff have left the Public Service on this basis.  These were largely in the Local Authority area (over 600), with small pockets in the Defence, Education and among some non-commercial state bodies.  It is the responsibility of local sectoral management to oversee these schemes, under the agreed standard terms.   

It is important to note that:

- the approach to Voluntary Redundancy schemes has been to allow Public Service organisations to use it on a targeted basis in different areas where it makes sense and can be shown to offer value for money in the long run;

- Voluntary Redundancy is by definition not compulsory, and therefore people only leave if that is what they want; equally there is no automatic right to redundancy.  All applications are considered in the context of ongoing business needs and service provision priorities.