Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response and am mindful that any changes made to pension entitlement have a knock-on impact and an ever-increasing budget would be needed to address that without having to make cuts in other areas. The homemaker's credit scheme in 1994 was to make qualification easier for those who took time out for caring. It allows for up to 20 years spent caring for children under 12 or those incapacitated, and for that time to be disregarded for pension purposes. In effect, it has reduced the number of years a person's contribution is divided by. It does not actually confer any extra credits. The 20 years spent caring have to be after 1994, so somebody who is 66 in this year, 2017, and is retiring would have been 43 back in 1994, and much of that person's caring would have been done already. That cohort of people is affected, many of which are my constituents. Many are female. If one looks at the State pension, two thirds of recipients of the contributory payment are male, at 64%, compared to one third being female, at 36%. Yet those in receipt of full payment are 79% male and 21% female, showing that the impact is very much on women who took that time out.

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