CE supervisors pensions
Deputy Ryan seeks legislation to implement a court recommendation on pensions for community employment supervisors. The Tánaiste says a legislative solution is unlikely and argues the State was not the employer responsible for a pension scheme.
Will the Tánaiste introduce legislation to give effect to the 2008 court recommendation on the pension rights of community employment, CE, supervisors? There is not a village in the country that does not benefit from CE scheme workers. That value of the work they do far outweighs the financial reward they receive. They keep community groups alive in rural areas in particular. I recently met CE supervisors in Kildare town. The work they do is invaluable to towns like Kildare, Newbridge, Monasterevin, Portarlington and Rathangan and the workers need to get what they deserve. More than 1,200 community employment scheme supervisors have been overseeing 900 State-funded services, ranging from childcare to meals on wheels, for almost 30 years. Their job is all the more challenging as we hover on the verge of full employment, as they deal with people who have been left behind by the so-called recovery. Will the Tánaiste please give them some hope and give them what they are entitled to?
Comment on this
I thank the Deputy. This is an issue I am familiar with and it has been going on for a long time.
We would very much like to see a solution to this issue, but I do not think that solution will be a legislative one. The relevant Labour Court recommendation called on the employer at the time to establish a pension scheme. The State is not the employer of CE scheme supervisors and, therefore, it was not our responsibility to establish a scheme. Of course, had there been a scheme, it would have been expected that the supervisors would pay into it, but they did not. That is the crux of the issue. Anybody who pays PRSI is entitled to a State pension, and CE scheme supervisors are entitled to one. However, we are not in a position to give an occupational pension to people who did not pay into an occupational scheme. If we open that door, there will be no end to it. Public service pensions only go to public servants and occupational pensions only go to people who paid into them. If we opened that door, there would be no end to the numbers of knock-on claims. Perhaps we can come up with some solution that is not a pension, and we are open to that.