The purpose of the Bill is to resolve a doubt which has been cast on my Department's interpretation of Section 8, sub-section (1) of the Military Service Pensions Act, 1924, and Section 20, sub-section (1) of the Military Service Pensions Act, 1934. These sub-sections provide that, where a pensioner is in receipt of any remuneration or allowance payable out of public funds, his military service pension will be abated in accordance with a scale set out in schedules to the Acts.
Pensions granted under the Act of 1924 were, except in the case of serving members of the Forces, payable as from the 1st October, 1924, or from 1st October, 1934, if application was made after the passing of the 1934 Act, and pensions under the 1934 Act commence as from the 1st October, 1934. Senators will appreciate, however, that all pensions cannot be granted simultaneously. Investigations must be made into each case and these investigations take varying times to complete, with the result that pensions are granted on different dates. Once granted, however, arrears were and are payable in every case from the dates which I have mentioned—1st October, 1924, in the case of the 1924 Act and 1st October, 1934, in the case of the Act of 1934, and in the case of applications under the 1924 Act made after the passing of the 1934 Act.
In case there may be any misunderstanding, I think it well to emphasise that the present Bill has nothing to do with the general principle of the abatement of pensions in respect of other receipts from public funds. That principle was established in the 1924 and 1934 Acts by both Houses of the Oireachtas and does not arise now. The Bill is necessary because of the difference which I mentioned between the date of award of a pension and the date from which payment commences. The specific question which gives rise to it is, whether the abatement of pensions of public servants should begin from the date of commencement or from the date of award of the pension.
The invariable practice of my Department for close on 20 years, in fact since military service pensions were first paid, has been to abate the pension not from the date on which it was granted but from the date on which it commenced. For instance, if a person receives a pension in 1944, dating back to 1934 and carrying arrears as from 1934, then the pension is abated over the ten years according to the amount he received each year from public funds. That seems the obvious intention of the sections, as well as being the only interpretation that could be justified, for, otherwise, it would mean that all such pensioners were not treated alike, despite the fact that their pensions became effective as from the same date.
This interpretation of the sections remained unquestioned for almost 20 years but, recently, it has been stated that the pension should be abated, not from the date of its commencement, but from the date on which it was granted. This claim has been put forward by a few persons and, on its being rejected, they have threatened legal proceedings. No case has been tested in the courts but I am advised that, though the new interpretation is questionable, it might be accepted by the courts. As it is felt, however, that the Oireachtas never intended any such inequitable interpretation, the present Bill has been introduced to remove all doubts on the subject.
An illustration may, at this point, bring out the difference between what is now being asserted and what has been the practice. Suppose, for instance, that two persons—A and B —each in receipt of £600 a year salary from public funds, applied on the same date and were each awarded a pension of £200 a year under the 1934 Act, but that A was granted his pension in 1934, while B, through delays of one kind or another, did not receive his award until 1944. The newly-suggested interpretation contends that A's pension is rightly abated each year from 1934, but that B's should be similarly abated only from 1944. Thus B would be better off than A for pension purposes to the extent of about £2,000—that is, he would be entitled to ten years' pension without abatement simply because it had not been possible to deal with his case as expeditiously as with that of A. The Departmental view and practice are, however, that both persons for pension purposes are similarly circumstanced and that both pensions fall to be abated over the whole period.
I feel that it was never the intention of the Oireachtas to make any such discrimination as that now suggested between pensioners in receipt of remuneration out of public funds, but that the clear and equitable intention was to treat them alike. Accordingly, the purpose of the present Bill is to remove any legal doubt which may exist regarding the interpretation of the sections and to confirm what must undoubtedly have been the intention of the Oireachtas and what has always been the practice.
