Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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151. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if there is an index linking to current pay rates for retired members of An Garda Síochána on pensions to recent national pay agreements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52101/17]

Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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152. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the position regarding pensions paid to retired members of An Garda Síochána and the impact of recent pay agreements on those below pensions of €32,500 and above €32,500, respectively; if his attention has been drawn to the financial difficulties of persons on the lower fixed pensions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52102/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 151 and 152 together.

In the past, the pensions of  retired members of An Garda Síochána were generally adjusted in line with changes in the wages or salary of the Garda member’s grade at retirement. Sometimes referred to as "pay parity", this non-statutory linkage lapsed in 2010, when the values of pensions in payment were left unchanged notwithstanding salary cuts at the beginning of that year which affected all public servants, including An Garda Síochána, under the financial emergency legislation.

Due to a grace period associated with the 2010 salary cuts, public servants and members of An Garda Síochána who retired in the 26 months following those cuts, i.e. in the period to end-February 2012, had their pensions based on the higher pre-cut salary levels. This has led to the current situation whereby post-February 2012 retirees, on a like-for-like basis, mostly receive lower pensions than their earlier retired counterparts.

The lapsing of pay parity along with the pension differential arising between pre and post-2012 retirees, has created the conditions under which the issue of how to adjust the post-award value of Garda and public service pensions, through appropriate pay or other linkages has required consideration.

In that context, pension increase policy in An Garda Síochána was considered by Government during the mid-2017 public service pay talks, which led to the recently ratified Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020 (PSSA).

Section 6.2 of the PSSA indicates that, over the duration of that agreement, policy on public service pensions in payment will be guided by the following three elements:

- First, the need to adopt an equitable approach to the various public service pensioner cohorts differentiated by date of retirement (in particular pre and post end-February 2012) is affirmed.

- Second, for those who retired or will retire post end-February 2012, to the extent that they retired or will retire on reduced salaries for pension award purposes, they will receive pension increases in line with pay increases received by their peers currently in employment in accordance with the terms of the collective agreement.

- Third, when alignment is achieved between pre and post end-February 2012 pensioners, as will happen progressively for salary ranges up to €70,000 in 2020 under the proposed collective agreement, pay increases will continue to benefit pensions in payment for the duration of the agreement.

The essence of the Government’s pension increase policy over the PSSA lifetime to end-2020 is that pensions in payment will increase in line with pay increases where that is necessary to ensure that underlying salary on which those pensions are based is equal to that of the salary on which new-award pensions of same-grade retiring staff are based.

This effectively represents a limited resumption of the pre-FEMPI "pay parity" model, under which pension rates rose in line with pay increases, and will be applied within strictly controlled terms until end-2020 only.