Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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200. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a person who was formerly a teacher in receipt of the occupational retirement pension on medical grounds can be transferred to an occupational retirement pension; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2926/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Entitlement to a teacher’s pension on grounds of ill-health is not automatic. Such a pension is granted under the statutory pension scheme for teachers by my Department where the Occupational Health Service physician, following detailed assessment of the available medical evidence, recommends that the teacher is no longer incapable by reason of infirmity of discharging his or her duties as a teacher and that infirmity is likely to be permanent.  The Occupational Health Service provider is tasked with, among other things, providing independent medical advice to my Department in respect of applications for retirement on ill-health grounds by teachers and other school staff.

Where a teacher retires through ill-health on pension, the service on which the benefits are calculated may, under the scheme rules, be augmented to enhance the pension payable. 

The pension scheme does not provide for a person in receipt of a pension granted due to ill-health to transfer to any other form of pension payable under the pension scheme.

In the event that a teacher makes a full recovery from the illness in respect of which ill-health retirement was awarded, it is open to him/her to submit medical evidence of this to my Department. The medical evidence would then be assessed by the Occupational Health Service and in the event that the teacher was deemed no longer unfit to discharge the duties of a teacher, s/he could seek employment as a teacher or any other employment.  However pension would immediately cease and would not resume until ultimate retirement. Any added service previously awarded would be excluded in the calculation of benefits on ultimate retirement.