First Previous (SECOND SCHEDULE)

26 1999

QUALIFICATIONS (EDUCATION AND TRAINING) ACT, 1999

THIRD SCHEDULE

Section 52.

Superannuation

1. In this Schedule “relevant body” means the Authority, the Higher Education and Training Awards Council or the Further Education and Training Awards Council, as the case may be.

2. As soon as practicable after the commencement of Part VIII a relevant body shall, subject to section 52 , prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme or schemes for the granting of superannuation benefits to or in respect of such employees of the relevant body as the body thinks fit.

3. Every such scheme shall fix the time and conditions of retirement of all persons to or in respect of whom superannuation benefits are payable under the scheme and different times and conditions may be fixed in respect of different classes of persons.

4. A relevant body may at any time prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme amending a scheme previously submitted and approved under this Schedule.

5. A scheme or amending scheme submitted to the Minister under this Schedule shall, if approved by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance, be carried out by the relevant body in accordance with its terms.

6. If a dispute arises as to the claim of any person to, or the amount of, any superannuation benefit payable pursuant to a scheme under this Schedule, such dispute shall be submitted to the Minister for determination by the Minister, whose decision shall be final, subject to the agreement of the Minister for Finance.

7. No superannuation benefit shall be granted by a relevant body to or in respect of any of its employees who are members of a scheme under this Schedule, nor shall any other arrangement be entered into for the provision of any superannuation benefit to such persons on their ceasing to hold office, other than—

(a) in accordance with such scheme or schemes submitted and approved under this Schedule, or

(b) with the approval of the Minister subject to the consent of the Minister for Finance.

8. Every scheme submitted and approved under this Schedule shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as practicable after it is so approved, and if either House, within the next 21 days on which that House has sat after the scheme is laid before it, passes a resolution annulling the scheme, the scheme shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under the scheme.

9. Where, in the period between the establishment of a relevant body and the coming into operation of a scheme under this Schedule, a superannuation benefit would have been granted to or in respect of a person accepted into the service of a relevant body under section 52 , in respect of the person's service in the National Council for Educational Awards, then the superannuation benefit shall be granted and paid to or in respect of that person by the relevant body and, for that purpose, his or her pensionable service with that body shall be aggregated with his or her previous pensionable service.