Mr. Ciar?n Lawler:

I thank the Senator. I will start where she finished, on the 2012 changes. The Senator is correct that in the plans that were introduced in 2012, there were more bands and this reduced the rate of pension that might have been payable to people who were assessed under the career averaging rule, as it was called at the time. Since then, an interim total contributions approach has been introduced so people who have reached pension age from 2012 onwards will get the rate of pension that is the best of the averaging approach or the total contributions approach.

I am not sure if the Senator has the up-to-date figures but we are beginning to see some positive results from that approach. If we go back to 2018, just over 37% of women qualified for the maximum rate. In 2019 that increased to over 47%, in 2020 it was over 48% and it was over 49%, or almost half, last year. It is still not at the same rate as for men and the proportion of men who qualify is about 63%, but it is certainly going in the right direction. That may be a combination of the total contributions approach, with the 20 years of home caring credits. It is not a disregard; it is 20 years of credits that people have.