Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

59. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform given the announcements to recruit new members of An Garda Síochána, if he will address the issue where former members of the Defence Forces who are successful in their application will lose their pension entitlements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36740/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Members of the Permanent Defence Force recruited up to the end of 2012 are enrolled in the Defence Forces pension scheme. The pension terms applicable to members of that scheme are a matter for the Minister for Defence in the first instance.

Members of the Permanent Defence Force,and public servants generally, who were recruited since 1 January 2013, ordinarilybecome members of the Single Public Service Pension Scheme, whose rules are set out in the Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Act 2012. However under section 10(5) of that Act, former pensionable public servants re-entering public service employment at any time after 2012 may be exempted from Single Scheme membership provided that such re-entry occurs within 26 weeks of cessation of their previous public service job.

I understand that the position of trainee Garda is considered to be a public service position, notwithstanding the fact that it is not a pensionable public service position. Consistent with this, a person appointed as a trainee Garda is a "public servant in accordance with the definition of that term in the 2012 Act.

On that basis, a person who leaves a pensionable public service post, in which pre-Single Scheme pension terms applied, and subsequently becomes a trainee Garda within 26 weeks, will have taken up a position as a public servant.  Accordingly, under section 10(5)(b) of the 2012 Act, that person will ordinarily qualify for exemption from Single Scheme membership in the new employment, and will normally be enrolled instead in the "pre-existing" public service pension scheme prevailing in the new employment. This would mean that, subject as appropriate to the terms and conditions of that pension scheme and the rules of the Public Sector Transfer Network, the persons could transfer his or her public service pension entitlements into the pre-existing scheme in the new employment.