Government considering proposals to extend deadline for public service staff to retire on pre-pay-cut salary levels

The Government is understood to be

considering proposals to extend the end-of-August deadline for public service staff to leave if their pensions are to be calculated on the higher salaries in place prior to the cuts introduced under the Hadddington Road agreement last year.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) warned Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin in recent weeks of significant implications for services and organisations if significant numbers of senior staff departed at the same time before the current "grace period" expires.

Separately, HSE director general Tony O'Brien, has confirmed it has proposed changes to the current plans.

In a letter to Mr Howlin, the secretary of the public services committee of Ictu Tom Geraghty said: "The public services committee of ICTU believes there are sound reasons to extend the current grace period.

" In the absence of an extension there will be a significant haemorrhage of experienced public servants, causing disruption to service delivery and causing a loss of historic memory in key operational and policy areas.

Specialist categories
"As this grace period is only relevant to staff who are earning above €65,000 per annum, the implications of its early termination are focused on managerial and skilled specialist categories.

“Against this background we are requesting that you exercise your statutory powers to extend the grace period to a date later than the end of August 2014.”

Meanwhile, Mr O’Brien said the HSE had suggested that the ending of a grace period that resulted “in a significant number of staff leaving the health services on a single day or a single month could have adverse consequences for the health service”.

He said the HSE would prefer if a grace period did not expire in the second half of the year as it would already have paid staff the bulk of their annual salary and then have to fund retirement lump sums and pensions.

Staggered
Mr O'Brien said the HSE would also like to see arrangements under which the exact day of departure for staff could be staggered by management over a period of three or four months .

He said the HSE was not seeking to disadvantage staff in the health service.

The proposals would not prevent someone from retiring in August if they wanted to do so.

It is understood the letter from the unions seeking an extension to the grace period is still under consideration by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

A spokeswoman for the department said there was no change to the end-of-August deadline.

Under the Haddington Road agreement, negotiated last year, pay cuts were put in place for staff earning more than €65,000.

Relatively senior managers in the Civil Service, local authorities, health service, the Garda and the Defence Forces as well as other high-earning groups such as doctors and judges were affected.