It says that every member of the clerical staff shall be civil servants. That means they will be pensionable as civil servants. Could we have details of that scheme?

In section 12 we are empowering the preparation of a scheme of superannuation.

Yes, but it says: " other than officers who by virtue of section 10 (6) (b) of this Act ". That seems to exclude them from the special scheme. The people included under section 10 (6) (b) are full civil servants.

Yes.

As full civil servants they will have the full pension rights of civil servants. Here you have two classes of officers.

This is to be a scheme of pensions for, say, professional staff. There may be professional staff there on short term and there may be professional staff on longer term.

There should be parity here. It has too often happened in regard to other branches of the State service that there has been disparity. There has been a great deal of difficulty in trying to achieve this knid of parity. It is the duty of this committee to ascertain what is the distinction. I am not asking for it now but I would like to know before this Bill is passed what the rights of civil servants are.

I could easily find that out for the Deputy.

If the Attorney General would do that informally I would be grateful. I would also ask the Attorney General to consider whether a Report Stage amendment would be necessary arising out of that. I am not asking for any commitment.