
Issues with pension deductions could see some Ministers have to repay up to €30K
Some current and former ministers could owe the State up to €30,000 following issues with their pension deductions.
The National Shared Services Office (NSSO) provides services to public service bodies, including all Government departments.
This includes human resources, payroll, pension, and finance management services.
Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers confirmed on Tuesday he was made aware of issues with the NSSO's systems in March. However, the full details of the issues were not provided to him until last week.
There are three cohorts impacted by these errors, including retired civil service retirees with work-sharing patterns, current and former ministers and office holders and retired senior civil servants.
Mr Chambers confirmed that the error lies with the NSSO and any underpayments or overpayments are not the fault of the individuals impacted. However, he said, the money will be recouped or repaid.
Due to administrative errors, pension deductions were incorrectly applied to most members of the current Government, Ministers of State, some members of previous Governments and recent office holders.
The NSSO will now contact them to explain the issue and 'make arrangements for the recoupment of monies owed or to issue refunds as appropriate.'
Mr Chambers said he would not confirm the exact amounts owed and which former or current ministers owe money
However, he confirmed the amounts range from hundreds of euros to the low €30,000s 'in terms of monies to be recouped'.
A number of Ministers will also be owed money back from the NSSO, ranging from hundreds of euros up to the low €20,000s.
Separately, Minister Chambers said the NSSO is currently conducting a 'scoping exercise to establish the scale of the problem' regarding retired civil servants.
He continued: 'A pool of 13,000 retirees will have to be checked, although the number affected is likely to be much smaller.
'To be clear, this does not imply that all 13,000 will have anomalies, but all 13,000 will be checked.'
The third issue concerns the administration of Chargeable Excess Tax (CT) and Withholding Tax (WHT) on senior-grade civil service pensioners.
CT is a tax on pension funds at retirement when the pension pot exceeds the Standard Fund Threshold, which is currently €2m. WHU is deducted from retirement lump sums over €200,000.
In total, between CET and WHT, NSSO has identified 30 cases. One person owes the State up to €280,000.
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The Journal
18 hours ago
- The Journal
FactCheck: How will Ireland's new system for organ donation work?
IRELAND IS SET to enact a new opt-out organ donation system, which has led to questions about consent, bodily autonomy, and the role of the State in medical decisions. The Human Tissue (Transplantation, Post-Mortem, Anatomical Examination and Public Display) Act 2024 was signed into law more than a year ago; parts of it, including a new 'opt-out' organ donation system, will come into effect on 17 June . According to a explanatory memorandum submitted to the Oireachtas, the bill was intended to 'support and increase organ donation and transplantation in Ireland' by creating a 'soft opt-out system of consent'. This means that people who don't want to donate organs are expected to let their wishes known, rather than the other way around. The memorandum also says the bill will embed the idea that 'consent is the defining principle across all practices related to human tissue'. In other words, people or their families need to give permission over what happens to their bodies after death. However, not all commentators have seen the bill this way. Criticisms of the bill aired in the Oireachtas, when it was the subject of seven debates, ( which can be read here ), including concerns about increases to hospitals' administrative burden, or how data is collected. However, after dozens of amendments — a normal part of the passage of legislation through the Dáil and Seanad — it appears that the Act in its current form enjoys broad support. Online commentators have taken more extreme issues with the Act, and what it has set out to do, taking issue with the very idea of opting-out of organ donation. 'Do you want the state to have ownership over your organs???' reads the caption on a Facebook video, viewed more than 55,000 times since it was posted in May. 'The State will take ownership of the organs of all of its citizens under presumed consent, with the introduction of the Human Tissue Act,' a woman in the video says to camera. The video's description reads: 'If you don't protect domain over your own body, the State can inject and implant whatever they see fit.' But how exactly does the Human Tissue Act change things? Does it mean that the State will own your organs once parts of the legislation become law next week? How organ donation works now Experts who spoke with The Journal said that the new legislation was the first of its kind in Ireland. 'The Human Tissue Act itself is quite a beast,' Colin White, the National Advocacy and Projects Manager with the Irish Kidney Association has said. 'It covers a large, large area. Transplantation and organ donation is only Part Two of the [six-part] legislation.' He also pointed out that the law has not yet been enacted because the Government has sought to figure out how to set up parts of the system, such as the opt-out register. Karen Kilraine, Barrister at Law at The Law Library also told The Journal that organ donation and transplantation in Ireland was largely governed by medical guidelines, ethical guidelines and the principle of consent before now. 'There is no statutory regulatory authority equivalent to the Human Tissue Authority in the UK,' she explained. The Human Tissue Authority in the UK regulates post-mortems, organ donation and transplantation, as the use of human bodies for research, anatomy training, public displays, or medical treatment. The current system in Ireland effectively means that the main considerations for organ donation are the wishes of an individual donor's family, as well as confirmation that the donor is dead. White outlined how this works in practical terms. 'To be in the position to be a potential organ donor, typically you have to be in an intensive care unit on a life support machine, and two independent doctors have to declare you brain stem dead,' he said. 'At that point, the possibility of organ donation can be broached.' There were 263 organ transplants performed in 2024, including 84 from deceased people and 30 from living donors, according to the HSE . The majority of these (175) were kidney donations. (A single dead donor can give multiple organs to separate recipients. For example, both kidneys can be transplanted). White noted that only about 1-2% of people who die will do so in such a way that they are eligible for organ donation. Statistics from other countries give even lower figures . This is largely due to the need for such organs to be recovered shortly after death, but also because the cause of death might damage a person's organs. Initially, Ireland's organ donation system focused primarily on kidney donations. 'The organ donor card was introduced by the Irish Kidney Association back in the late '70s,' White said. 'Originally it was the Kidney Donor Card, because the kidney was the organ that was being mostly transplanted. For the other organs, the science hadn't quite got there. 'Over time, that has morphed into the organ donor card that we know today. The Irish Kidney Association is still responsible. Every single organ donor card that's in the country comes out of our office.' However, despite what many people believe, the card itself doesn't have any legal weight. 'The donor card has space for two signatures on the back of it, one for the owner and one for a person's next of kin,' White explained. 'The idea is then that they take the card and go to a family member and say, 'Here, there's a space for you to sign this. Will you sign here?' 'That's its primary function — it's an icebreaker into the conversation about organ donation. Because typically, it's not something that comes up at the dinner table 'How was your day, dear? And, oh, by the way, in the event of me being a potential organ donor, would you make sure it goes ahead, please?'' Whether or ot not a person has a card, the family of a deceased potential donor will be approached for consent to donate their organs. 'Even if the deceased carries a donor card, their next of kin (as in nearest relatives) still have to consent to the donation,' barrister Karen Kilraine said. Ultimately, both the card and the conversations it may have prompted are only a guide to a family's decision after a person has died. Advertisement What will change under the new law? Under the incoming rules, an opt-out register will be set up, whereby people can register that they do not want to donate their organs after death. There are no plans for an equivalent opt-in register. 'If somebody feels 'I'd rather not be considered a potential organ donor, I'd rather not have my family to have to address that question', they will be able to go to a HSE-run register and record their details,' White told The Journal. 'So in the event that they die in the circumstances where organ donation is a possibility, the first step from the hospital will be to consult the opt-out register.' People who are not included on the register will be 'deemed to consent' to organ donation. However, that is not the end of the legal hurdles. As under the previous system, a person's next-of-kin still has to agree to the donation. The new legislation formalises the concept of a 'designated family member', and will rank these in order, from spouses and civil partners, through siblings, down to friends. If more than one person shares the highest applicable rank, just a single objection is enough to stop an organ from being donated. 'Where a deceased person is not on that register and there is therefore 'deemed consent', a doctor cannot remove organs unless what is termed a 'designated family member' has confirmed in writing that they have no objection to donation,' Kilraine told The Journal. 'The Act does not change that. The decision with respect to organ donation is ultimately settled after death and by someone other than the deceased.'' Given these new restrictions, how is the new system expected to increase the number of organ donations rather than discourage them? 'The idea behind it is to try and kind of make it more the cultural norm, that it's part of the dying process,' White said. 'Under the current system, the conversation might be 'did your loved one have an organ donor card?', or 'did you ever have a conversation about organ donation?', or 'do you think organ donation is something that they would have considered?' — that kind of phraseology.' 'After 17 June, the question will be more about, as the legislation says, 'Is there any reason you think your loved one would have objected to organ donation or not want to have been considered?'' Further restrictions But the legislation still places further restrictions around organ donation after a person dies. Over six chapters, Section 2 of the Human Tissue Act breaks down the rules, principles, and priorities that have to be accounted for during the process. These are too long to delve into in detail, but generally, the Act takes a cautious tone when it comes to donating a dead person's organs. 'In the absence of 'opting out', all adults who are 18 years of age or above, ordinarily resident in the State for 12 months or more, who do not lack capacity and or have not for a significant period of time before their death are deemed to consent to organ donation,' Kilraine said. 'People not satisfying these criteria include children, who cannot be deemed to have given consent.' Kilraine also noted that some sections appear to give 'safeguards', ranging from people who would have consented to donate some particular organs but not others, to those who don't want their organs donated but for whatever reason had never opted out. 'It's not a case of, 'Well, I never got around to opting out, so the State are going to take my organs',' White told The Journal. 'The public can rest assured that if a family member hasn't opted out, their relatives will still be the final port of call. It's written very clearly into the legislation: hospitals cannot bypass the family.' Organs and ownership Given the emphasis on the consent of a person's family, is there any weight to the notion that people's organs will become property of the State, as has been claimed online? 'A dead body is not considered property in Ireland; this is to respect and afford dignity to a dead body and which supersedes any concept of ownership,' Kilraine explained. The term 'property' does not appear once in the Human Tissue Act, nor does the term 'ownership'. The term 'owner' does appear three times, but always in relation a building or business, e.g. 'the owner of the hospital'. Instead, dead bodies and organs are legally put under 'authority', a far more limited concept than that of property. 'Next of kin have certain rights and responsibilities with respect to a dead body including with respect to burial and decisions regarding post mortems and organ donation,' Kilraine said. 'This does not amount to ownership.' 'Where a death is sudden, unexplained or in suspicious circumstances, the coroner has legal authority over the body and can order a post-mortem and or retain the body for investigative purposes. 'This authority when in force supersedes any rights of the next of kin or family. It is however as a custodian, and neither the coroner or the State have ownership of a dead body. 'None of the above are changed by the Act. Organs of dead people would not be said to be property of the state or of anyone else.' The gift of life The new Irish legislation follows opt-out systems that have been put in place in other countries, including in every jurisdiction in the United Kingdom. However, since being introduced in England in 2020, it has not had a major impact on the number of organs that have been donated. In large part, this was due to potential donations being overruled by patients' families. Of the 1,036 cases where deemed consent applied, the family did not support donation 446 times, according to statistics from the NHS . In many ways, the conversation encouraged by the Kidney Donor Cards since the '70s is still the key to successfully enabling organ donations. 'When we lose a loved one, there's very much that element of powerlessness,' White told The Journal 'And then there's this opportunity, if you're in that 1-2%, to transform the lives of others.' 'I've witnessed, over the years, donor families coming up to the transplant recipients to say 'thank you', which is mind blowing. The recipients say 'No, hold on there! It's your loved one and your decision that has allowed me to do what I'm doing'. 'But the donor families say: 'No. It brings some degree of meaning to the loss of our loved one.'' 'We have to think of organ donation, not only in terms of the recipients, but equally of the donor family,' White said. 'We've lost a loved one, but there are other families out there who are getting to celebrate another of life's milestones, to see another Christmas, to share another sunrise.' The Human Tissue Act introduces a new framework for organ donation, however the rights of surviving family members remain paramount. 'Empower your family. Have the conversation,' White implored. 'Or, some might put it a different way: take the decision out of your family's hands by letting them know what you want.' Want to be your own fact-checker? Visit our brand-new FactCheck Knowledge Bank for guides and toolkits The Journal's FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network's Code of Principles. You can read it here . For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader's Guide here . You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here . Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... It is vital that we surface facts from noise. Articles like this one brings you clarity, transparency and balance so you can make well-informed decisions. We set up FactCheck in 2016 to proactively expose false or misleading information, but to continue to deliver on this mission we need your support. Over 5,000 readers like you support us. If you can, please consider setting up a monthly payment or making a once-off donation to keep news free to everyone. Learn More Support The Journal


Irish Examiner
20 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Cianan Brennan: Why didn't government admit its error with biometric public services cards?
Six years ago, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) went mano-a-mano with the government of the day over the infamous public services card, and ended up in a long legal war of attrition. That battle involved a simple question: Could the card be used as a catch-all portal for citizens accessing the State's services, regardless of their wishes? That particular spat was more than a little unedifying, ending up in a wholesale climbdown on the part of the Department of Social Protection in December 2021. However, yesterday's decision by the commission to fine the department €550,000 and order it to suspend the biometric processing of the public's data via the card should be even more seismic. €550,000 is five times the amount of the next-largest fine for breach of GDPR by a public body, and more than half of the maximum allowable. Puzzling defence of the indefensible Six years is a long time, however, and the world is a different place now. This time round, the State may be more willing to take its punishment from its own regulator. That in itself would be borderline farcical. The government — former social protection minister Regina Doherty being probably the most noteworthy culprit — argued for years that the card did not carry biometric data, despite it being plainly obvious to anyone with common sense that it did — in this case, a photo used for facial matching. Why did the State spend hundreds of thousands of euro in taxpayers' money defending the indefensible? The answer may be because it couldn't afford not to. Why did it do so? Because it couldn't afford not to. Having stated until it was blue in the face that black was indeed white, to change tack in any way would have been legally disastrous. Why the government of the day couldn't just hold its hands up and admit fault in the first place, rather than spending hundreds of thousands of euro in taxpayers' money defending the indefensible, we may never definitively know. However, we can speculate. The card is deeply ingrained in Irish society now, but that wasn't the case to quite the same extent in 2019. Furthermore, back then GDPR was brand new. It was so new that the initial investigation into the public service card was carried out under Ireland's previous Data Protection Act. Under that act, the commission had far fewer teeth to impose fines. GDPR is now a firmly embedded, if not universally beloved, EU policy. Maybe in 2019 it was felt the time wasn't right for the government to eat crow on its ambitious biometric card venture. Range of views in data protection community Those we polled yesterday across Ireland's niche data protection community had different views as to whether or not the Government, in the guise of the Department of Social Protection, will go the legal route once more. One said: The circumstances have changed. The data protection and GDPR landscape is much clearer now than it was under the old act. 'It seems more likely than not that this is one that won't be challenged, at least not in court.' However, there was little consensus. 'For years, they [the department] have been shouting that there is no biometric data on the card. Now this decision from the regulator is unequivocal that there is. Can they really back down from that? Would that be in character?' a second expert asked. DPC will defend its decision 'very robustly' Should the Government press the nuclear button once more and appeal the decision to the courts, deciding commissioner Dale Sutherland has made it clear that 'we will very robustly defend our decision'. He said: We are well used to this. It is a feature of our system. There are other puzzling aspects to yesterday's decision, not least the sheer length of time it took. The biometrics investigation had been set in train even before the 2019 decision, which dealt specifically with whether or not the government had the right to make the card mandatory for public services such as passport applications, yet it was only officially commenced in July of 2021. It then took four more years to complete, during which time the card has become ever more embedded in Irish society. That is surely an inordinate amount of time to take over a key investigation concerning personal data. 'This was a complex inquiry with complex issues,' Mr Sutherland said. 'The resources these inquiries take are just extraordinary. This one took a bit of time,' he added, while allowing 'it's probably a bit longer than we would have liked'. Digital Rights Ireland, whose initial complaint spurred the investigations back in 2017, professed itself 'concerned' at the length of time it had taken to finalise the probe. A spokesperson added that the decision 'leaves the Government in a very serious situation', given it has spent 'hundreds of millions of euro on an illegal public service card project'. Mr Sutherland stressed, however, that 'the important thing is that it [the investigation] is done now'. Asked whether the world had moved on in the last six years, he said: 'The principles haven't.'