Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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28. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide data showing the percentage of persons working in construction who are members of an occupational pension scheme; the initiatives in place to increase pension coverage in the sector; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5086/16]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department of Social Protection does not maintain specific data showing the percentage of persons employed in construction who are members of an occupational pension scheme.

However, I can confirm that according to a Central Statistics Office Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) on pension provision published on 21 April 2011, the rate of persons in construction related employment with either an occupational pension, a personal pension or both and aged 20-69 was 44% in the final quarter of 2009.

Two large pan-industry schemes, the Construction Workers' Pension Scheme (CWPS) and the Construction Executive Retirement Savings (CERS), currently have in the region of 20,000 active members. However, it is important to note that company employees, contractors and the self-employed who identify themselves as working in the construction sector may avail of a range of vehicles for retirement provision such as occupational pension schemes including small self-administered pension schemes or personal pensions such as PRSAs or Retirement Annuity Contracts and membership numbers would not be included in these CWPS figures.

In January 2015 a cross departmental Universal Retirement Savings Group was established to develop a roadmap and timeline for the introduction of a new, universal, supplementary workplace retirement saving scheme. Such an employment based defined contribution scheme would increase coverage across all employment sectors including construction and will have particular focus on lower-paid workers.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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29. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the status of self-employed persons who are not entitled to claim a State pension; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5096/16]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Self-employed persons pay PRSI at the class S rate of 4% and are covered for certain social insurance benefits and pensions, including the State pension (contributory). Employees pay Class A PRSI at the rate of 4% and are covered for a range of benefits and pensions, including the State pension (contributory). In addition, their employers generally make a PRSI contribution of 10.75%, resulting in the payment of a combined 14.75% rate per employee under full-rate PRSI Class A.

To establish entitlement to State pension (contributory), a contributor must, in the first instance, have paid at least 520 qualifying contributions by the time they reach pensionable age, currently 66 years. Once this condition is satisfied, a full or reduced weekly rate of pension is payable depending on the yearly average number of contributions paid over the period from commencement of employment/self-employment up to pension age (66).

The qualifying conditions for entitlement to State pension (contributory) apply to all classes of contributors and there is no differentiation in treatment for State pension (contributory) purposes between the self-employed and employees. In addition, it should be noted that the self-employed are awarded 52 contributions each year regardless of the number of weeks in which the self-employment was carried out in that year while employees are awarded contributions only in respect of the number of weeks worked.

Employees and the self-employed who reach 66 years and who do not satisfy the conditions for entitlement to the State pension (contributory) are eligible to apply for the means-tested State pension (non-contributory).