Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise; I have one last thing on care credits that relates to Senator Doherty’s comments There was a problem where people were not getting credits because they previously did not have a social protection record such as, for example, those who had come home from abroad to care. Has that been addressed? Are those people getting captured in terms of PRSI stamps at the moment?

Are those who do not qualify for the carer’s allowance or other payments based on means testing always nonetheless included into the system for the purposes of care credits? I worry sometimes that those who fail to get a payment may fall out of the system in terms of their crucial future contributory pension. What mechanisms does the Department have to avoid those particular gaps?

Finally, something for which I have pushed for years is that as well as care being recognised in one’s pension, care becomes a contributory allowance. For example, if a person has been caring for a period of ten years, that person has care credits in the system and could therefore access an Intreo scheme, back to education scheme or other schemes. At the moment, effectively, if a person is not on carer’s allowance, has been out of the social protection system and has not been getting a payment for a period of five or ten years - a position in which many qualified adults end up - that person is not individually visible to the system. If these people want to move back into the workplace, they do not have the one or two years in the system that would allow them to access voluntary schemes that might support them.