PUBLIC SERVANTS who wish to retire to avail of pension entitlements before they are cut and taxed in February next year, will be required to give three months’ notice, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has said.

In his first Dáil question time as Minister, Mr Howlin said he expected the original number of 3,000 people forecast to leave the public service this year to be “very significantly exceeded”.

At the end of March there were just under 304,000 people in the public service. The numbers are expected to be reduced by between 18,000 and 25,000 by 2014 with a further 4,000 in 2015.

Fianna Fáil public expenditure spokesman Seán Fleming had expressed concern that 3,000 were expected to retire this year after 5,000 had exited the service last year. “It would leave 18,000 to go in the 2012-2014. That’s 6,000 per annum which is double the rate of what’s happening this year alone.” He asked if there was the “capacity to cope with that massive scale”. People “will crack at some stage”, he said. “Do you appreciate the gravity of the situation you pose?” he asked the Minister.

Mr Howlin referred to the previous government’s decision to allow “pension entitlements on the pre-cut pay to be available up to the end of February next”. He said: “I have decided to require three months’ notice of retirement.” The Minister added that “in about September we will have an indication of a significant volume of people who will avail of their last opportunity to get their pre-cut pension entitlement. I would be confident that the 3,000 figure that the deputy mentions for this year will be very significantly exceeded.”

Earlier Mr Howlin said the downgrading by Moody’s ratings agency “won’t distract this Government and the very strong support we have from the people we depend upon to fund us. We are completely funded well into 2013.”

He said “who knows what’s going to happen in the next two years but we will step by step get ourselves, our country and our economy on to a good footing.”

The Government, he told Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP, Dun Laoghaire) was “going, as we have done, to map a way to economic solvency. The people of Ireland have met the targets we’ve set. They’ve carried the burden. “We’ve had industrial peace because people want this Government to succeed in getting us back to economic solvency and that’s why there’s good will still for this,” he said.