Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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221. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if retired public servants will receive an increase under the national wage agreement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42992/20]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In 2017 the Government agreed the policy on public service pensions in payment for the period to end 2020 as follows:

- An equitable approach must be adopted for the various public service pensioner cohorts who are not only differentiated by amount of pension in payment (determined by grade and service) as heretofore but also by date of retirement (in particular pre and post end February 2012).

- Accordingly for those who retired or will retire post end-February 2012, to the extent that they retired on reduced salaries, they will receive pension increases in line with the pay increases due to their peers in employment.

- When alignment is achieved between pre and post end-February 2012 pensioners, pay increases will continue to benefit pensions in payment.

The above approach was intended to deal with the ongoing complexities which arise as FEMPI pay related provisions are unwound. Given that this process of unwinding of FEMPI pay reductions will be ongoing over 2021 to 2022 as per sections 19 and 20 of the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017, the requirement for equitable treatment, as outlined above, will continue to arise over this period. Accordingly, the above arrangements will remain in place to end 2022 in advance of which I will consider the future policy approach on this issue.