Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 31 together.

The homemakers' scheme was introduced in 1994 to protect the social welfare pension rights of those who take time out of the workforce for caring duties. The scheme allows up to 20 years from 1994 to be spent caring for children or incapacitated adults to be disregarded when a person's social insurance record is being averaged for State pension contributory purposes. Provision is also made for the award of credited contributions in the year in which a person commences or ceases to be a homemaker. The homemaker's scheme does not, of itself, qualify a person for that pension, as the standard qualifying conditions relating to the type and number of contributions paid or credited must also be satisfied.

The residency conditions of the scheme were changed in March 2005 so that, in effect, it is no longer necessary for a homemaker to reside with the person for whom he or she cares. In addition, the deadline to register as a homemaker has also been extended for those homemakers from 6 April 1994 to 31 December 2006, and applications will be accepted until 31 December 2007.

People in receipt of child benefit are automatically registered under the homemaker's scheme, as is the majority of applicants for carer's allowance, carer's benefit and the respite care grant. A total of 15,034 people have been registered under the scheme since its introduction in 1994. In 2004, some 1,760 people were registered, 1,569 people in 2005 and 1,055 in 2006. The majority of these are people who did not qualify for the means-tested carer's allowance scheme or who had no entitlement to credited contributions under that scheme.

As part of the new social partnership agreement Towards 2016, the Government is committed to producing a Green Paper on pensions. The homemaker's scheme will be reviewed in the context of the review. It is expected that the Green Paper will be finalised by the end of March 2007 and published thereafter. A consultation process will then take place and the Government will publish a framework for future pensions policy on foot of this discussion.

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