Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 349: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs further to her announcement some time ago that farmers' wives working in partnership with their spouses can qualify for a non-means-tested pension as a result of the applicants' claiming partnership status retrospectively, the position with regard to spouses of other self-employed individuals such as shopkeepers and publicans who would have worked full-time in the business and held no employment outside the business, in respect of claiming retrospection to a share of the PRSI paid by their spouses, provided they could meet similar requirements to those of farmers spouses; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33311/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Spouses working for self-employed contributors are specifically excepted from social insurance contributions. However, spouses who are actively engaged in a commercial partnership, including the operation of a farm, as opposed to simply being the joint owners of a property, are treated as individual self-employed contributors and are thus liable to social insurance contributions.

On foot of a Programme for Government commitment an information leaflet, 'Working with your spouse: how it affects your social welfare contributions and entitlements', has been developed between the Department of Social & Family Affairs and the Revenue Commissioners to set out the social welfare and tax implications of families co-working in a shared business. It was published on the 25th of June, 2008.

The leaflet clarifies that spouses who operate in a commercial partnership may be brought into the social insurance system, subject to certain criteria. In this way, both spouses incur a liability to pay self-employed PRSI and build up entitlement towards a contributory state pension and other Social Welfare benefits. Application for benefits would take place in the usual way, following any approval of an application for commercial partnership status and the payment of any resulting PRSI liabilities.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Revenue Commissioners use the following factors to decide if a partnership normally exists:

there is a written partnership agreement (a written agreement is not required by law, however);

each partner writes cheques on the business accounts in their own right; there is a joint business account;

it is apparent to those doing business with the partnership that a partnership exists;

business accounts and activities are in joint names of the partners;

each partner makes a significant contribution to the running of the business;

the business is owned jointly by the partnership;

the profits and losses of the partnership are shared by each partner; the business stationery reflects the existence of a partnership.

An applicant should meet some of these general criteria if they are claiming to be in a partnership with their spouse. If they cannot do this, they will be deemed not to be in a business partnership. The leaflet, which is not specifically targeted to any group of self-employed workers, may be of interest to self-employed workers and their spouses generally. Persons interested in applying for partnership status should firstly study a copy of the leaflet, available from the Information Section of the Department or at www.welfare.ie , which sets out the application procedure in detail.