Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012

Superannuation.

22.— (1) As soon as may be after the establishment day, the Authority shall prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme or schemes for the granting of superannuation benefits to or in respect of such of its staff (including the chief executive) as the Authority thinks appropriate.

(2) Every such scheme shall fix the time and conditions of retirement for all persons to, or in respect of whom, superannuation benefits are payable under the scheme and different terms and conditions may be fixed by such schemes in respect of different classes of persons.

(3) The Authority may at any time prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme amending or revoking a scheme previously submitted and approved under this section.

(4) A scheme or amending scheme submitted to the Minister under this section shall, if approved by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, be carried out by the Authority in accordance with its terms.

(5) Every scheme made under this section shall make provision for appeals.

(6) No superannuation benefit shall be granted by the Authority to or in respect of any of its staff (including the chief executive) who is a member of a scheme under this section, nor shall any other arrangement be entered into for the provision of any superannuation benefit to such a person on his or her ceasing to hold office, other than in accordance with a scheme or schemes submitted and approved under this section or an arrangement approved by the Minister and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

(7) The Minister shall cause every scheme submitted and approved under this section to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is approved, and if either such House within the next 21 days on which that House sits after the scheme is laid before it, passes a resolution annulling the scheme, the scheme shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to anything previously done under it.

(8) Where, in the period beginning on the establishment day and ending immediately before the commencement of a scheme under this section, a superannuation benefit falls due for payment to, or in respect of, a person who was transferred to the staff of the Authority under section 21 , the benefit shall be calculated by the Authority in accordance with such arrangement, approved by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, as applied to him or her immediately before the establishment day and, for that purpose, his or her pensionable service with the Authority shall be aggregated with his or her previous pensionable service with a dissolved body and the benefit so calculated shall be paid by the Authority.

(9) A scheme under subsection (1) shall, in respect of a person who becomes a member of the staff of the Authority under section 21 , provide for the granting to or in respect of him or her of superannuation benefits upon and subject to such terms and conditions, approved by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, as applied to him or her immediately before the establishment day in relation to the grant of such benefits.

(10) Any period of service by a person as a member of the staff of a dissolved body that was a period of pensionable service for the purposes of a scheme for the granting of superannuation benefits to or in respect of members of the staff of the dissolved body shall, in respect of a person who becomes a member of the staff of the Authority under section 21 , be regarded as a period of pensionable service for the purpose of any scheme under subsection (1).