Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The State pension is a very valuable benefit and the bedrock of the pension system. Therefore, it is important to ensure those qualifying have made a sustained contribution to the social insurance fund over their working lives.

The homemaker’s scheme makes qualification for the contributory State pension easier by disregarding time spent out of the workforce on caring duties. The scheme was introduced in and took effect from 1994. Eligibility for the scheme is conditional on, first, meeting the standard qualifying conditions for State pension.

As previously stated, backdating the scheme would involve considerable costs. The 2007 Green Paper on pensions indicated that to back-date the homemakers scheme to 1953, the year when the unified system of social insurance was introduced in Ireland, would cost the Exchequer in the region of €160 million and to 1973, an estimated €150 million. These were immediate annual costs at the time of publication of the Green Paper. It is difficult to determine exact numbers, given the absence of information on those involved, including their family circumstances, work and insurance records. These costs took into account the likelihood that any backdating would go towards improving the position of those already in receipt of reduced payments or a qualified adult payment. The cost of the scheme, under current rules, is expected to increase in the coming years owing to the increase in female employment rates since 1994.

While my Department will keep the homemakers scheme under review, improvements which could result in further costs for the Exchequer could only be considered in a budgetary context where our financial position as a country had improved significantly.

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