Newly-recruited public servants should be able to stay at work until they are 67, a Government-appointed committee of officials and trades union leaders has recommended.
The report from the Working Group on Public Service Pensions was received by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, some weeks ago, and is still being studied.
The group was set up after divisions emerged within the Commission on Public Service Pensions. The commission had recommended that public servants should retire at 65 rather than being able to leave employment between the ages of 60 and 65 without suffering pension shortfalls, as they can do now.
The union representatives on the commission, which included the then General Secretary of the INTO, Senator Joe O'Toole, objected to this, arguing that many workers in private industries are able to retire before 65 on full pensions.
Instead, the union leaders proposed 'a wider window' of 60-67 for all staff, which would allow those who want to work after 65 to do so, and yet not penalise those who want to quit beforehand.
During the Working Group's discussions, management representatives proposed the 62-67 'window', and to guarantee that workers with more than 40 years service would not make further pension contributions.
The Commission on Public Service Pensions, chaired by Prof Dermot McAleese, also recommended that new teachers, nurses, gardaí, firefighters and fire staff should have the right to retire on full benefits in their late 50s, as their currently-employed counterparts do.
Management representatives sitting on the commission had argued that these privileges were "outdated, internally illogical and expensive".
Talks have already taken place with psychiatric nurses' union leaders and similar discussions are planned with teaching, fire brigade and prison officer unions, and the Garda associations.According to Industrial Relations News, public service pensioners were more concerned about losing out to younger colleagues still at work, than losing out to other pensioners.
Meanwhile, management representatives on the Commission did not respond to the refusal by unions to accept that public sector workers should pay an extra 1 per cent contribution for their pensions.
The union leaders said the 1 per cent contribution issue had been dealt with during the benchmarking talks. "As a consequence the proposed additional contribution could have no validity even within the terms recommended by the Commission," they said in a submission. The commission found that the public service pension bill would quadruple by 2027. Using 1998 as a yardstick, the commission, which reported in November 2000, warned that the public pension bill would require the levying of an extra four cent on the top rate of tax, and nearly three cent on the standard rate.
