More than 30 serving and former ministers who were overpaid due to errors in pension deductions have not yet entered a process to repay what they owe.

Last June, it came to light that 34 serving Ministers had received overpayments as a result of miscalculations made on their pension entitlements by the National Shared Services Office (NSSO).

Of those, 32 owed money to the State ranging from hundreds of euro, to more than €30,000. Two Ministers had been underpaid and were owed money.

Subsequently, in a follow-up examination, it was discovered that 39 former ministers had also been overpaid because of the same error. One former minister had been underpaid.

At a meeting of the Oireachtas finance committee on Wednesday, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers disclosed that 10 serving Ministers who were overpaid have not yet agreed to a plan to repay the money.

Mr Chambers said that 22 had fully repaid the money owed or were in a payment plan.

Of the 39 former ministers who were overpaid, a total of five had repaid the money in full, while a further 12 had agreed to a repayment plan. That left a total of 22 former ministers who had yet to begin repaying their overpayments.

Mr Chambers said the situation with the former ministers had come to light later than that with serving Ministers. Once the anomaly had been discovered with Government members, he said, a “look back” exercise had been conducted to see if any former ministers were affected.

Mr Chambers was responding to questions from Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty who said the fact that the repayments had not yet been made was “shocking”.

Mr Doherty said that somebody had come into his constituency office before Christmas who, through no fault of their own, was overpaid by the Department of Social Protection.

“The department just took the money back. They were not given six or seven months to work this out. We’re talking about ministers here who are all paid in excess of €180,000 and we’re told that 10 current Ministers still haven’t arranged a method to pay this money back.”

In June 2025, it was also disclosed that 30 former senior civil servants had also been overpaid. The sums ranged from a few hundred euro to €280,000.

In all, 13,000 former civil servants were also potentially affected by the “miscalculation and underpayment” of pensions for some of those in work-sharing arrangements who were in receipt of allowances.

None of the Ministers affected has been named.