41.—(1) The Authority shall prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme or schemes for the granting of pensions, gratuities and other allowances on retirement or death to or in respect of such members of its staff as it may think fit.

(2) Every such scheme shall fix the time and conditions of retirement for all persons to or in respect of whom pensions, gratuities or allowances on retirement or death are payable under the scheme, and different times and conditions may be fixed in respect of different classes of persons.

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

(4) A scheme submitted to the Minister under this section, shall, if approved of by the Minister with the concurrence of the Minister for the Public Service, be carried out by the Authority in accordance with its terms.

(5) A scheme under a repealed Act shall continue in force and shall be deemed to be a scheme made under this section.

(6) If any dispute arises as to the claim of any person to or the amount of, any pension, gratuity or allowance payable in pursuance of a scheme under this section, such dispute shall be submitted to the Minister who shall submit it to the Minister for the Public Service whose decision shall be final.

(7) No pension, gratuity, allowance or other such payment shall be granted by the Authority on the resignation, retirement or death of an employee of the Authority, nor shall any other arrangement be entered into for provision of a pension, gratuity, allowance or other such payment to such persons on ceasing to hold office otherwise than in accordance with a scheme under this section.

(8) Every scheme submitted and approved of under this section shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is approved of and if either House, within the next twenty-one days on which that House has sat after the scheme is laid before it, passes a resolution annulling the scheme, the scheme shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder.

(9) The following provisions shall apply in relation to a member of the staff who stands seconded under section 40 (2) and who is a member of a scheme under this section:

(a) the secondment period shall, for the purposes of the scheme, be deemed to be service of that person which is reckonable for superannuation benefits under the scheme if, but only if—

(i) he was a permanent member of the staff of the Authority and was a contributor under the scheme immediately before the commencement of the secondment period,

(ii) he elects, by notice in writing given to the Authority within three months after the commencement of the secondment period, to pay contributions under the scheme in respect of the secondment period in accordance with the provisions of this section, and

(iii) he pays, at such times and in such manner as the person duly appointed to administer the scheme may specify, contributions under the scheme in respect of the secondment period equal in amount to the aggregate of the contributions which he would have paid and the contributions which the Authority would have paid in respect of the secondment period if he had remained without secondment a member of the staff of the Authority during the secondment period and had been in receipt of remuneration during the period,

(b) the Authority shall not pay any contributions under the scheme in respect of the secondment period, but that part of the contributions payable by him as aforesaid which is equal to the amount of the contributions which the Authority would have paid under the scheme in respect of the secondment period if he had remained without secondment a member of the staff of the Authority during the secondment period and had been in receipt of remuneration during that period shall, for the purposes of the scheme, be deemed to have been paid by the Authority,

(c) if the secondment period is terminated by his death or by his retirement from that staff, he shall, for the purposes of the scheme, be deemed to have died in or to have been retired from the staff of the Authority, as the case may be, and to have been in receipt of remuneration immediately before such death or retirement, as the case may be,

(d) if he does not pay or if, having paid contributions under the scheme in accordance with the provisions of this subsection, he ceases to pay contributions as aforesaid, he shall, for the purposes of the scheme, be deemed to have resigned from that staff—

(i) in case he ceases to pay contributions as aforesaid — on the date of the last payment, and

(ii) in any other case — immediately before the commencement of the secondment period.

(10) If a person who is or was a member of the staff of the Authority becomes entitled to a pension under the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act, 1938 to 1977—

(a) he shall not be entitled to reckon the whole or any part of his period of pensionable service, within the meaning of those Acts, for any superannuation benefits payable under a scheme to which this section applies,

(b) if he has paid any contributions in accordance with the provisions of subsection (9) in respect of that period, so much thereof as is equal to the amount of the contributions which he would have paid in respect of that period under the scheme if he had remained without secondment a member of the staff of the Authority during that period and had been in receipt of remuneration during that period, shall be returned to him if and when a payment of benefit or a return of other contributions is made to him under the scheme.

(11) A reference in subsection (9) or (10) to the receipt by any person of remuneration from the Authority shall be taken as a reference to the receipt by that person of remuneration from the Authority at the rate at which he was being remunerated on the day before his secondment.