{"id":419139,"date":"2026-01-17T13:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419139\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:12:20","slug":"ministers-seeking-clarification-on-pension-overpayment-errors-after-recession-salary-sacrifice-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419139\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers seeking clarification on pension overpayment errors after recession \u2018salary sacrifice\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Current and former ministers<\/a> who made a \u201csalary sacrifice\u201d are waiting for clarification on whether pension<\/a> overpayment deductions should be based on their gross salary or the net salary they gave up.<\/p>\n

When asked about the overpayment issue on Thursday, a spokeswoman for Minister for Housing James Browne confirmed he is not yet in a repayment plan relating to the pension overpayment and is \u201cin an ongoing engagement and seeking clarification\u201d with the National Shared Services Office (NSSO), which manages the pension payments.<\/p>\n

Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan is \u201cengaging with the NSSO regarding this matter with a view to finalising it,\u201d his spokesman said. Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee has \u201cengaged with the NSSO on a repayment\u201d and agreed a repayment plan, according to her spokeswoman, who couldn\u2019t clarify when it was agreed or when it will start.<\/p>\n

Thirty-three serving Ministers said they had agreed a repayment arrangement, that the issue did not apply to them, or that they had repaid what was owed.<\/p>\n

Responses were not received from Chief Whip Mary Butler or Minister of State for Agriculture Michael Healy-Rae. <\/p>\n

The issue is affecting current and former ministers<\/a> who made a \u201csalary sacrifice\u201d (took a deduction in pay). In the D\u00e1il on Thursday, Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said some Ministers are awaiting clarification around the gross salary versus net salary issue. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has the right to ensure that they are paying the correct amount, and every single Minister wants to ensure that they are doing that, and that is very important,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Last June, it came to light that 34 serving Ministers had received overpayments as a result of miscalculations made on their pension entitlements by the National Shared Services Office (NSSO<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Of those, 32 owed money to the State, ranging from hundreds of euro to more than \u20ac30,000. Two Ministers had been underpaid and were owed money.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, in a follow-up examination, it was discovered that 39 former ministers had also been overpaid because of the same error. One former minister had been underpaid.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke defended the now 32 current and former ministers involved in the overpayments controversy, seven months after the issue was first raised.<\/p>\n

In the D\u00e1il, Sinn F\u00e9in finance spokesman Pearse Doherty claimed they were \u201cholding out\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt\u2019s completely unacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n

He condemned the \u201ccomplete absence of urgency, of discipline, of accountability or consequence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke told the D\u00e1il, \u201ceveryone has the right to ensure that they are paying the correct amount, and every single Minister wants to ensure that they are doing that, and that is very important\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0More than 30 current and former ministers overpaid in pensions error yet to start repaymentsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, Mr Doherty said 10 serving Ministers who are \u201cpaid far more than the average workers\u201d have not paid back \u201ca single red cent, not arranged a repayment plan, not settled their account, not even taken the most basic steps of returning money that never belonged to them in the first place\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Chambers said on Wednesday that 22 had fully repaid the money owed or were in a payment plan.<\/p>\n

Of the 39 former ministers who were overpaid, a total of five had repaid the money in full, while a further 12 had agreed to a repayment plan. That left 22 former ministers who had yet to begin repaying their overpayments.<\/p>\n

Mr Doherty said an ordinary worke or pensioner overpaid by the Department of Social Protection was not \u201cgiven seven months to agree to pay it back\u201d.<\/p>\n

The department \u201cacts without delay, and that is the experience of ordinary people right across the State. So why is it one rule for ordinary people and another rule for Government Ministers?\u201d<\/p>\n

He asked: \u201cWhy is the ordinary worker or pension given little or no time, yet the Ministers, some of them on up to \u20ac200,000, think it\u2019s okay for them not to repay the public the tens of thousands of euro that they were overpaid?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sums of up to \u20ac30,000 were overpaid \u201cand these are the same Ministers that decided the recent budget that left ordinary working people worse off in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and all the while, they\u2019re sitting on public money\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Burke said Government decisions were made where \u201cministers took a deduction in their pay, a salary sacrifice. The question was posed, should the pension deduction, the calculation, be on the gross salary or the net amount that was sacrificed?\u201d<\/p>\n

When the issue was raised again, Mr Burke said any current Minister who did not refund the overpayment would not receive their pension in the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Current and former ministers who made a \u201csalary sacrifice\u201d are waiting for clarification on whether pension overpayment deductions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,3946,186,3786,94502,218355,184,185,220823],"class_list":["post-419139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-dail-eireann","tag-finance","tag-government","tag-jack-chambers","tag-pearse-doherty","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-peter-burke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}