Background to the Pension Cuts

Following the financial crisis of 2009 Government used Emergency Powers to cut the pensions of Public Sector pensioners. This legislation has to be reviewed annually and Government must attest that the powers are still needed. The effect of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest legislation (Acts of 2010 and 2013) is that emergency powers are used to reduce all public service pensions over €12,000 per annum by between 8% and 28%.

The Math

This is the effect of the pension cuts at various points.

Pension			€12,700	€24,000	€30,000	€40,000
FEMPI 2010 and FEMPI 2013
	Cut Off
€0 - €12,000 @ 0%
€12,001 - €24,000 @ 8%	€12,000	8%	€56	€960	€960	€960
€24,001 - €60,000 @ 12%	€35,999	12%			€719.88	€1919.88
€60,001 - €100,000 @ 17%	€39,001	17%
€100,000+ @28%	Balance	28%

Total Reduction			€56	€960	€1,680	€2,880

Remaining Pension			€12,644	€23,040	€28,320	€37,120

Civil Service Pensions

Average Civil Service Pension

There are differing figures. However, The Nevin Economic Research Institute puts the average Public Service Pension at just under €19,500 p.a in 2012. There were further reductions in 2013 so the figure is probably fairly accurate.

You can read more on NERI's blog here

Numbers Receiving Civil Service Pensions.

The total number of Civil Service Pensioners was 16,228 in 2014 according to Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) cited in The Journal on April 7th 2014. This will have fluctuated up or down depending on whether the number of pensioners dying since that date exceeded the number of new retirements.

Article here

Civil Service Pensions over €100K

The article cited above states that DPER advised that 35 retired Civil Servants received pensions in excess of €100K p.a. before the 2010 cuts. If that figure is accurate the 2010 and 2013 cuts would have reduced the number considerably.

2 receive €100,651.50
1 receives €102,145.73
1 receives €104,361.49
1 receives €104,815.35
1 receives €105,039.21
1 receives €106,078.25
23 receive €107,228.63
5 receives €118,642.80

Pay Restorations

Information regarding Pay Restorations will be posted here