Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1980 > Committee of Public Accounts > Report - Appropriation Accounts 1978

APPENDIX 12

SUPERANNUATION AND RETIRED ALLOWANCES—PAYMENTS BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES

30 May 1980

Mr. S. Phelan,

Clerk to the Committee of Public Accounts.

A Chara,

When giving evidence to the Committee regarding the Appropriation Accounts for 1978, I undertook to supply a note in response to a query about delays in the receipt of certain payments from local authorities under subhead I (2) of Vote 20 — Superannuation and Retired Allowances.

The attached note provides the relevant information.

Mise le meas,

S. MAC GAMHNA,

Accounting Officer,

Department of the Public Service.

Vote 20—Superannuation and Retired Allowances.

Payments by local authorities under Subhead I(2).

The Committee asked whether certain payments had been received and whether arrangements had been made to ensure that payments would be received.

The position is that the payments in question are made on a twice yearly basis in respect of local authority service taken into account in calculating a civil servant’s pension. The statutory basis for the payments is the Local Government (Superannuation) Act, 1956. Because the amounts due are based on the pensioner’s actual service with the local authority (which is normally very short) and the actual salary on the last day of service with the Local Authority (which is normally much smaller than the salary on which the civil service pension is based because there is usually a considerable gap between the date on which the individual leaves the local authority and the date on which he retires from the Civil Service), the sums involved are very small and do not justify the administrative effort involved in transferring them. In addition, the abolition of the domestic rate has resulted in a position where most of the local authority contribution would be met from the Exchequer anyway. In the circumstances, the various Local Authorities and Health Boards have been asked to enter into agreements with the Minister for the Public Service under section 57(7) of the Act (which empowers the making of agreements between the organizations involved in a transfer that neither shall make refunds otherwise due under the Act) and most have signified their willingness to do so. It is the intention that the proposed agreements will apply not only to future cases, but to refunds already in course of payment and to any amounts outstanding.