Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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185. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will counteract the apparent inequity in the current agreement to reduce public service pension reductions for the approximately 25,000 retired civil servants who have an income of greater than €34,132 per year. [44000/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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My proposals to Government earlier this year in respect of the amelioration of the Public Service Pension Reduction (PSPR) burden on pensioners, and which now form part of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) Act 2015, deliver on my commitment to ease the burden of the PSPR as early as economic and fiscal circumstances allowed me to do so, with a focus on benefitting impacted lower-income pensions proportionately more.

The proposed ameliorative measures for public service pensions in the 2015 Act will deliver the part-restoration of the PSPR cuts in three stages effective from 1 January 2016, 1 January 2017 and 1 January 2018. When fully rolled-out from 1 January 2018, this means that all public service pensions in payment with pre-PSPR values of up to €34,132 will be fully exempt from PSPR, while those pensioners not fully removed from the reach of PSPR will, in general, benefit by €1,680 per year. Accordingly, all PSPR impacted pensioners including those on pensions in excess of €34,132 will benefit from the measures but those on lower income pensions will benefit proportionately more. The cost of these changes is estimated at about €90 million on a full-year basis from 2018.

I believe that the current PSPR ameliorative measures represent a fair and sound basis on which, in the improved but still constrained fiscal space, public service pension reductions may be restored  in a phased, moderate and progressive fashion, with those on lower PSPR impacted pensions benefitting to a greater extent. 

Under section 12 of the FEMPI Act 2013, I am required to review the necessity of FEMPI legislation annually and cause a written report of my findings to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. In that context, economic progress and fiscal consolidation in the years ahead will determine the scope and timing of the possible further scale-back or elimination of the financial emergency measures, including the PSPR.