Current Government Ministers could owe thousands of euro to the State due to errors at the national office that handles pension payments.
The sums that will need to be recouped range from hundreds of euro to just above €30,000.
Other Ministers may be owed sums into the thousands themselves due to the administrative errors at the National Shared Services Office (NSSO).
Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said “serious and systemic operational issues” have been identified at the NSSO.
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Aside from the implications for ministerial pensions, a pool of 13,000 retired civil servants are to have their pension deductions checked.
This cohort of former civil servants were in work-share arrangements and, while not all are necessarily affected, their pensions are to be checked for underpayments.
There is also an issue in relation to the pensions of 30 retired senior civil servants and one of them could owe as much as €280,000 as a result of NSSO errors.
Mr Chambers has committed to “fully and comprehensively addressing” the matter and said he is focused on “ensuring all monies owed to the State are fully recouped and monies owed to individuals are refunded”.
It is believed most current Government Ministers and Ministers of State will owe money to the State due to errors in their pension deductions. Some may be due some money back. Others are unaffected.
Expected sums owed by current Ministers range from hundreds of euro to just above €30,000. Other Ministers may be owed hundreds or up to about €20,000.
The issue also affects pension deductions for ministers in previous Governments.
Mr Chambers said the issues relates to “superannuation deductions and additional superannuation contributions with respect to salaries, allowances or gifted income”.
It is understood part of the problem arises from the treatment of part of ministers’ income returned to the State in recent years and how their pension deductions were calculated as a result.
Mr Chambers said the NSSO is contacting those affected.
“As these are personal matters relating to individuals’ pay, I’m not in a position to disclose the individual amounts,” he said.
In terms of the 30 former senior civil servants who are affected, the liabilities range from a few hundred euro to €280,000 as a result of NSSO errors related to the application of taxes on these pensions.
The issue relating to the pensions of 13,000 former civil servants goes back as far as 20 years, due to “miscalculation and underpayment” of pensions for some of those in work-sharing arrangements who were in receipt of allowances.
The NSSO is seeking to establish the scale of the problem.
Mr Chambers, who updated the Cabinet on the situation on Tuesday, said the errors “span different time periods and have been detected in different ways”.
They have arisen from “administrative errors” in the NSSO and were “not the fault of any of the individuals impacted”, he said.
Mr Chambers could not offer an estimate for how much the State owes or is due.
An external audit will focus on validating all aspects of the issues identified and to identify any further issues, he said.
Mr Chambers said the issues at the NSSO are “completely unacceptable” and must be corrected “as a matter of urgency”.
The Minister has appointed Derek Moran, former Department of Finance secretary general, as the new chair of the NSSO’s advisory board.
There is to be an external forensic audit of the NSSO systems and processes and Mr Chambers has separately requested “a broad external review of the NSSO’s capacity and structures”.
Legislation on governance of the NSSO is to be amended to ensure greater accountability and oversight. Such legislation is “being drafted”. Mr Chambers said the NSSO has advised him it is not aware of any further issues at this time.
