Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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Question 336: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if child-minders who avail of the new child-minding relief will be able to access maternity benefit or contributory pensions in later years. [4337/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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Self-employed workers generally pay class S contributions. The class at which contributions are paid and the number paid establishes the range of benefits and pensions towards which a contributor can build up entitlement. Class S contributors can accrue entitlement to the following payments: widow's or widower's contributory pension, orphan's contributory allowance, old age contributory pension, maternity benefit, adoptive benefit and bereavement grant.

Liability to social insurance contributions for self-employed persons is primarily determined by reference to reckonable income, as assessed in accordance with income tax provisions. The child-minding relief, announced by the Minister for Finance in budget 2006, would allow an individual to supervise up to three children other than his or her own at home and exempts all related child-minding earnings, up to a maximum ceiling of €10,000 per annum, from tax, social insurance and levy payments. Where child-minding income exceeds €10,000, the respective total amount earned by the minder would be taxable as normal under self-assessment procedures.

The issue raised by the Deputy is being addressed in the context of the preparation of social welfare legislation to give effect to the budget increases.