Pensions Board to examine claims

THE PENSIONS Board is to examine claims that large numbers of former public servants have lost "thousands of euro" in retirement benefits.

A group led by George O'Sullivan, a former national chairman of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and lecturer at Cork Institute of Technology, argues that the State failed to fully inform many of its workers of their pension rights when they became public servants.

Mr O'Sullivan and fellow campaigner Donnchadh Ó Riordáin, a founder member of the Teachers' Union of Ireland, have raised the issue over the last year with public service unions, politicians and the Government.

This week the Pensions Board wrote to the group to confirm that the body intended considering its case at its meeting next month.

According to Mr O'Sullivan, the people affected are mainly teachers, lecturers, nurses and other staff who joined the public service in mid-career when it would not have been possible for them to accrue their full State pension on retirement.

Since the early 1980s, such people have had the option of buying into the State's defined benefit scheme through its notional service purchase plan.

This means they get a guaranteed, index-linked pension on retirement.

Alternatively, they can use additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) to purchase an annuity to top up their pension, which has tax benefits but does not have the same guarantees as the State scheme.

Mr O'Sullivan says that in many cases the State bodies for which they were working failed to tell these employees of their right to buy into the public service pension.