Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act, 1972

Amendment of sections 13, 16 and 20 of Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act, 1938.

1.—(1) For the purpose of enabling pensions to be paid to or in respect of persons ceasing to hold, whether before or after the passing of this Act, the office of Deputy Chairman of Dáil Éireann, and for the purpose of enabling, where it would be appropriate, the period during which a person who has held that office (whether he ceases to hold that office before or after the passing of this Act), or a period equal to half that period, to be taken into account in determining the amount of a pension payable either to or in respect of him under the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act, 1938 , section 13 (1) of that Act is hereby amended by the substitution of “an office which is either the office of Deputy Chairman of Dáil Éireann or the office of Parliamentary Secretary” for “the office of Parliamentary Secretary” in the definition of “secretarial office”.

(2) In applying section 16 (3) of the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act, 1938 (inserted by section 11 of the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) and Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices (Amendment) Act, 1968 ) in relation to a pension payable because, and only because, a person held the office of Deputy Chairman of Dáil Éireann, the reference in that section to a Parliamentary Secretary shall be construed as a reference to the Deputy Chairman of Dáil Éireann.

(3) Where—

(a) a widow is in receipt of a pension under section 20 of the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act, 1938 , on the date of the passing of this Act, and

(b) the person in respect of whom the pension is payable had held the office of Deputy Chairman of Dáil Éireann,

as from the passing of this Act, the amount payable on foot of the pension shall be the amount which would have been so payable if subsection (1) of this section had been in force on the date on which the person died.