Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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124. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if adoptive mothers who gave up work under adoption rules and who subsequently had children of their own are entitled to claim credits for the period from the adoption to the birth of their own child (details supplied); if not, the reason; to examine the possibility of allowing these credits to be claimed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13851/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The primary purpose of the PRSI credited contributions or “credits” credit is to protect social welfare benefits and pensions of employees, by covering gaps in insurance where they are not in a position to pay PRSI, such as during periods of unemployment, illness etc.

Similar to other DSP schemes, credits can only be awarded provided certain qualifying conditions are met. To qualify for credits a worker must have paid at least one PRSI contribution while working and have had an attachment to the workforce in the last 2 tax years, as evidenced by having paid or credited PRSI contributions in that period. In general where a person has no PRSI paid or credited contributions for two full tax years, they cannot be awarded credits again until they return to work and pay PRSI employment contributions for at least 26 weeks.

Where these qualifying conditions are met, credits are awarded in respect of specific circumstances, including proven unemployment, notified incapacity to work receipt of specific social welfare payments (i.e. Maternity Benefit) or entitlement to certain statutory leave (i.e. Parental Leave).

Entitlement to credits for adoptive mothers depends on whether an individual has an underlying entitlement to credits, having satisfied the qualifying conditions, and is in receipt of one of the qualifying payments or fulfils the conditions such as those relating to proven unemployment or notified incapacity to work.

Adoptive mothers may also qualify for the Homemaker scheme. This scheme was introduced to make it easier for those who provide full-time care to qualify for State pension (contributory). Once an individual qualifies for State pension (contributory), the rate of payment is determined by the average number of contributions (paid or credited) since entering social insurance to reaching pension age. Years spent caring on a full-time basis are disregarded when calculating the average. The scheme was introduced in 1994 and applies to period spent caring from that date.