Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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123. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 243 of 18 May 2016, if there have been any cases where provision has been made for those retired from the community school sector to receive five years enhancement as per technical and specialist civil servants on pensions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28008/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department is not aware of any case where provision has been made for those retired from the Community School sector to receive 5 years enhancement as per technical and specialist civil servants on pension.

Public sector pension schemes by their nature have varying rules governing their administration. They are mainly statutory schemes, set up by or under Acts of the Oireachtas. Teachers in the Community School sector are members of The Secondary, Community and Comprehensive School Teachers Pension Scheme (S.I. No. 435 of 2009) while teachers in the Education and Training Boards are members of Education and Training Board Teachers Superannuation Scheme 2015 (S.I. No. 292 of 2015).

There is no provision for the award of added years under the rules of Secondary, Community and Comprehensive School Teachers Pension Scheme. However, there is provision for added years under the Education and Training Boards Teachers Scheme, where the minimum age limit specified for appointment and/or the minimum qualifications and experience specified for appointment to a professional, technical or specialist post in an Education and Training Board, would not allow a person to be appointed by age 25 and thereby acquire maximum reckonable service (40 years) by age 65. This was not seen as a requirement in the Voluntary and Community School Sector, where in general the issue did not arise. It should be noted added years are only awarded at retirement.

Therefore the pension provision a teacher may be entitled to upon retirement depends not on the course they have undertaken but rather the rules of the pension scheme of which they are a member. In this regard the pension entitlements of teachers in community schools differs from Educational Training Boards and indeed Civil Servants, because they have different pension schemes.