Mr. Ciar?n Lawler:

I am not quite sure I understand. The situation is that a person needs ten years of paid contributions over the course of his or her working life. That is the gateway, if we can call it that, to qualify for a pension. On top of that, a person can have up to 20 years of home caring credits applied for his or her pension for home caring periods, so that brings it up to 30 years. If a person has worked more than ten years, that will also be added to his or her pension. The long-term carers issue is different because that recognises the full period of care for carers who have been in those situations.

There has been some discussion at this committee as well in terms of how we might identify those long-term carers. The establishment of a family carer register seems to be the way to go. A number of Departments need to be involved in that. Family Carers Ireland has reached out to us on that, however, and we will be meeting with its representatives to discuss its ideas in that regard.