S.I. No. 9/1924 - Royal Irish Constabulary (Resigned and Dismissed) Pensions Order, 1924

STATUTORY RULES AND ORDERS. 1924. No. 9.

ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY (RESIGNED AND DISMISSED) PENSIONS ORDER, 1924.

Order by the Minister for Finance dated 10th January, 1924, made in pursuance of Section 5 (1) of the Superannuation and Pensions Act, 1923 , authorising the grant of pensions, etc., to certain persons who resigned or were dismissed from the Royal Irish Constabulary.

WHEREAS by sub-section (1) of Section 5 of the Superannuation and Pensions Act, 1923 , the Minister for Finance is empowered from time to time by Order to authorise the grant of pensions, allowances or gratuities to persons who resigned or were dismissed from the Royal Irish Constabulary on or after the first day of April, 1916, and before the sixth day of December, 1921, and whose resignations or dismissals from that Force are certified under the hands of the Ministers for Home Affairs and Finance to have been caused by their National sympathies, and by any such Order to regulate and appoint the rates and scales of such pensions, allowances or gratuities and the conditions under which the same are to be payable and by any such Order to prescribe the penalties for any fraudulent conduct in relation to an application for any such pension, allowance or gratuity.

Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred upon me by the said Section 5, and of all other powers me thereunto enabling, I, Earnán de Blaghd, the Minister for Finance, do hereby order as follows :—

1. This Order may be cited as the Royal Irish Constabulary (Resigned and Dismissed) Pensions Order, 1924.

2. This Order shall apply to all persons who resigned or were dismissed from the Royal Irish Constabulary on or after the first day of April, 1916, and before the sixth day of December, 1921, and whose resignations or dismissals from that Force are certified under the hands of the Ministers for Home Affairs and Finance to have been caused by their national sympathies.

3. Subject to the provisions of this Order, the Minister for Finance may grant to any person to whom this Order applies a pension commencing as from the 8th day of August, 1923, and calculated in accordance with the rules contained in Part I of the Schedule to this Order.

4. No pension shall be payable under this Order to any person who shall have been offered an appointment in any branch of the public service of Saorstát Eireann which in the opinion of the Minister for Home Affairs is reasonably suitable for him and shall have declined to accept such appointment.

5. (a) Where a person who has been granted a pension under this Order has taken or takes service in any police force or has been or is appointed to any office remunerated out of moneys provided by Parliament or which is a public office within the meaning of the Superannuation Act, 1892, or any amendment thereof, the Minister for Finance may reduce or wholly withdraw his pension for so long as he remains in that service or office.

(b) Where a person who has been granted a pension under this Order has taken or takes service in any police force or has been or is appointed to any office remunerated out of moneys provided by Parliament or which is a public office within the meaning of the Superannuation Act, 1892, or any amendment thereof, and is awarded a pension on retirement from such police force or office, then, if the amount of the pension under this Order when added to the amount of his pension on retirement as aforesaid exceeds the higher of the two following sums

(a) two-thirds of the salary on which his pension under this Order was calculated, or

(b) two-thirds of the salary of which he was in receipt at the time of his retirement as aforesaid

or should those sums be equal exceeds either of those sums, his pension under this Order may be reduced by the amount of such excess so long as such excess continues :

Provided that where the person on his retirement as aforesaid is awarded a lump sum instead of or in addition to a pension, the annual amount which would represent that sum if converted into a life annuity shall be determined by the Minister for Finance, and the amount so determined shall for the purposes of the foregoing provision be deemed to be or to form part of his pension.

(c) For the purposes of this section " Parliament " shall include the Oireachtas of Saorstát Eireann or the Parliament of Great Britain or of Northern Ireland.

6. In the event of any person to whom this Order applies being granted any pension or gratuity under the Army Pensions Act, 1923 , or Section 4 of the Superannuation and Pensions Act, 1923 , the Minister for Finance may reduce or wholly withdraw the pension that would otherwise be payable under this Order to such person.

7. The provisions contained in Part II of the Schedule to this Order shall apply with respect to all pensions granted under this Order.

8. Any person who obtains or attempts to obtain a pension under or in pursuance of this Order by any false representation or false evidence, or by personation, or by any other fraudulent conduct, shall be guilty of an offence under this Order, and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds or, at the discretion of the court, to imprisonment with or without hard labour, for a period not exceeding three months, and shall also forfeit any pension so obtained.

EARNÁN DE BLAGHD,

Minister for Finance.

SCHEDULE.

PART I.

Rules.

1. The pension shall be calculated in like manner as the pension which the person would have been entitled to receive if he had retired for length of service under the existing enactments applicable to him, and had been qualified in respect of his length of service for a pension save that, for the purposes of that calculation, the following provisions shall have effect :—

(a) His completed years of actual service shall be reckoned as if he had continued to serve during the period which elapsed between the date of his resignation or dismissal up to and including the 31st day of March, 1922 ;

(b) Twelve years shall be added to his completed years of actual service ;

(c) His salary shall be taken at the amount which it would have reached if during the interval from the date of his resignation or dismissal up to the 31st day of March, 1922, and thereafter for the number of years so added he had continued to serve in the same rank as he held at the time of resignation or dismissal, save that, in the case of a district inspector of the third class, he shall be deemed to have been entitled to, and to have received, promotion to the second class on completion of one and a half years' service in the third class, and that, in the case of a district inspector of the second class he shall be deemed to have been entitled to, and to have received, promotion to the first class on completion of eleven years' service in the second class, and save that the maximum pay of a constable shall be taken as 90s. weekly except in any case where a higher rate was actually drawn, in which case such higher rate shall be taken ;

(d) If the number of his completed years of service, as reckoned under this rule, is less than the minimum number of years of service for which provision as respects pensions is made in the appropriate pension scale, that scale shall apply with the substitution of the number of his completed years of service as so reckoned for that minimum number ;

(e) If he has, in addition to his completed years of actual service, served for a period exceeding six months, his service for that period shall be reckoned as a completed year of actual service ;

(f) The scale of ordinary pensions prescribed by the Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions Order, 1922, shall be deemed to apply to persons to whom this Order applies.

2. No pension awarded under these Rules shall exceed two-thirds of the salary on which the pension is calculated.

3. In these Rules the expression " existing enactments " means enactments in force on the 31st day of March, 1922, and in the application of such enactments any person to whom this Order applies shall be deemed to have continued to serve in the Royal Irish Constabulary up to the 31st day of March, 1922.

PART II.

Assignment of Pensions and Regulations as to Payment of Pensions, etc.

1. The following provisions shall have effect with respect to every pension payable under this Order to any person :—

(1) Every assignment of and charge on a pension, and every agreement to assign or charge a pension shall, except so far as made for the benefit of the family of the pensioner, be void, and on the bankruptcy of the pensioner the pension shall not pass to any trustee or other person acting on behalf of the creditors ;

(2) Where any sum is due from the pensioner to the Minister for Finance or to the State, the Minister for Finance may deduct the amount of any such sum from the pension ;

(3) On the death of a pensioner to whom a sum not exceeding one hundred pounds is due on account of a pension, then, if the Minister for Finance so direct, probate or other proof of the title of the personal representative of the deceased may be dispensed with, and the sum may be paid or distributed to or among the persons appearing to the Minister for Finance to be beneficially entitled to the personal estate of the deceased pensioner, or to or amongany one or more of those persons, or in the case of the illegitimacy of the deceased pensioner, to or among such persons as the Minister for Finance may think fit, and the Minister for Finance, and any officer of the Minister for Finance making the payment, shall be discharged from all liability in respect of any such payment, or distribution ;

(4) Every pension shall be paid, after the first instalment, in advance, except in the case of a refusal to make any payment due to the Minister for Finance ; but, where a person dies whilst in receipt of a pension paid in advance, no return shall be required of any payments which have been made in respect of any period after his death.

Forfeiture of Pension.

2. (1) A pension under this Order is granted only upon condition that it becomes forfeited and may be withdrawn by the Minister for Finance in any of the following cases, that is to say, if the pensioner :—

(a) is convicted of any offence and is sentenced to penal servitude or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months ; or

(b) knowingly associates with thieves or reputed thieves ; or

(c) refuses to give to the police all information and assistance in the power of the pensioner, for the detection of crime, for the apprehension of criminals or for the suppression of any disturbance of the public peace ; or

(d) enters into or continues to carry on any business, occupation or employment which is illegal ; or

(e) having been offered and having accepted an appointment under Article 4 of this Order, is dismissed from the service to which he was so appointed, or resigns from that service in circumstances not entitling him to an award of superannuation (other than a return of any contributions made by him in respect of pension) under the enactments governing the grant of superannuation on retirement from such service.

(2) Such forfeiture and withdrawal may affect the pension wholly or in part, and may be permanent or temporary as the Minister for Finance may determine.