Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Voluntary contributions cannot be used to make up the figure of 520 contributions. The 520 contributions have to be accumulated from self-employment or paid employment. The committee should find out if many people get trapped in that. If not, it would be a matter of having the carer’s credits amended. If that is catching a lot of people, there is a separate issue of the lack of actual paid contributions and the fact that people do not get paid contributions when they are fostering, unless they have some type of part-time work. From what we heard, that is rare.