Eoghan Kenny Challenges Minister on Uniformed Pensions and Retention

Minister, this is something that has been championed by my colleague Deputy Duncan Smith and the Labour Party as a whole for many years now. I am asking you, please, for your commitment to the reinstatement of the supplementary pension facility for uniformed services and to ensure that retention and recruitment can increase. Minister. Thank you, Deputy. The single public service pension scheme is the statutory public service career average defined benefit pension scheme. It was established under the Public Service Pensions Act 2012. The provisions of the scheme are clearly set out in law. All new entrant public servants hired after 1 January 2013 are members of the single scheme. The introduction of the scheme is instrumental in ensuring the sustainability of public service pensions, particularly in the context of improved life expectancy and rising public service employee numbers. As a single scheme uses a career averaging model, a member's retirement benefits are based on a percentage of their pensionable earnings throughout their public service career. For each period, members accrue amounts towards their retirement benefits. The total accrued at retirement with adjustments for inflation determines their final retirement benefits. This is payable in addition to any social welfare pension entitlement. Uniformed members, firefighters, prison officers, Gardaí and the Defence Forces have enhanced benefits that other single scheme members do not have. Uniformed staff can accrue more benefits over their expected, shorter public service careers in recognition of their retirement age. When uniformed staff reach normal retirement age, they can retire and receive their retirement lump sum and occupational pension benefits payments. While single pension scheme benefits are integrated with the contributory state pension, these benefits are separate and additional to any entitlement that they may have to the state pension, which is paid from the age of 66 by the Department of Social Protection. In 2024, Government enacted legislation to allow for an increase in the mandatory retirement age for uniformed staff to 62, if they wish to avail of it. It also allows uniformed staff to build up additional referrable amounts towards a single scheme pension for additional years' work, increasing its final value. A supplementary pension was never a feature of the single scheme, nor was it planned to be. No commitment has been made by the Government in relation to supplementary pensions for single scheme fast accrual members. Go on, August, Minister. So, I suppose, on the face of that, that's a complete and utter no. And I think, like, I don't understand, do Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael or do Government now for many years not realise that the men and women who are in our defence forces, who are in the Garda Síochána, who are firefighters, who are in our prisons, these people go above and beyond Minister. And what we have right now, in all of our public service, but in particular in our uniformed services, we have a retention and recruitment crisis. And all of those groups, Minister, that I've mentioned, Garda Síochána, firefighters, defence forces, prison service, they have all stated that because of this pension scheme, we have more and more people leaving early. If you're told at 55, Minister, that you have to go and get a new job, why wouldn't you do it now? You would. Because you don't know what condition you're going to be in at 55. And that's no disrespect to anybody. But it's a fact, Minister. So, on the face of that, I'm taking it as a complete no. Minister? Well, look, this was one of the biggest pension reforms introduced in 2013 in terms of the single public service pension scheme. And part of what we're trying to do is to ensure we have sustainability of pension provision and can pay for this over the longer term. And also, the work that has been undertaken to increase the mandatory retirement age for uniformed staff also helps in the context of workforce planning and, indeed, to give certainty for uniformed staff where they can build up additional referable amounts towards their single scheme pension for any of the additional years worked increasing its final value. And there's also work ongoing in the context of the respective pay agreements that we have to improve the paying conditions, both of uniformed staff but also for members across the public service as a retention measure. And that work is ongoing, obviously, with direct engagement with the respective bodies. So, this was an important reform. It's there nearly 12 years now. And it's important in the context of sustainability of state pensions. Deputy. Minister, Carl Dalton, the Prison Officers Association General Secretary, said, If the last government believed that extending the retirement age alone addressed the concerns of prison officers, guardiae, firefighters and members of the Defence Forces, this survey, which is carried out, shows just how little they understand these services and the people they work in them. You don't want this to be your legacy, Minister, within the Department of Public Expenditure. And I know that. You don't want that. But you have a decision here, and government have a decision to make. We have a retention and a recruitment crisis. These are the men and women on our ground, Minister. You see any storm across the country, any crisis we have, we're all at home. We're all safe. These people are on the front line. They're out there representing this country. That's the bottom line here, Minister. But we don't want these people in a position where they feel, ultimately, that they're not wanted or respected. You referred there to the reform of the pension scheme. That's completely failed. People are leaving these services on Garda-Shiaqana, firefighters, prison services, Defence Forces. It doesn't take anyone to see it. If you look at it from the outside, they're leaving. Thank you. Minister? Well, part of what we're trying to do is, first of all, the increase in the mandatory retirement age helps and makes a difference. It improves the overall end pension in terms of the referable amounts towards the single scheme pension. But also another issue in engagement with workers is, obviously, the basic paying conditions, which we engage with in the context of the respective pay agreements that we've had. But there's well-documented evidence and the need to ensure we have a sustainable pension system, which we can pay for into the long term. And that's why retaining this in the context of future reforms is critical to ensure that we can manage the long-term sustainability of it. But I think it's important to look at it in the round. We have strong engagement with trade unions in the context of the public service pay agreements. But I think to fundamentally undermine and disrupt the single public service pension scheme would have implications in terms of paying for this in the long term. I'm sure you've read the Future 40 report published by the Department of Finance and the need to manage the inevitable demographics shift, which is going to happen in the Irish economy. Thank you, Minister.