Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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336. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will, in the case of permanently disabled persons that employ full-time or part-time carers, make them exempt from PRSI and employer contributions without any disadvantage to the rights of the employee or loss of benefits to the employee; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17654/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Where a carer is employed directly by a person requiring care services then PRSI contributions (employer and employee) are payable, at the appropriate PRSI Class - Class A. Such employees are treated in exactly the same way as other employees. This ensures that people employed as carers (and employees paying Class A generally) have access to short-term social insurance benefits, such as jobseekers or illness benefits in the event that they become unemployed or ill, as well as ensuring that they can establish entitlement to longer term benefits such as the contributory state pension.

Exempting such employments from a PRSI liability while at the same time granting PRSI contributions and associated rights to benefits and pensions (as if the contributions had been paid) would represent a major departure for the social insurance system. It would, in particular, run counter to the long-standing principle of access to benefits and pensions on foot of payment of contributions while in employment. There are no plans to introduce changes in the current arrangements for specific groups of employees.

Carers who work on a self-employed basis and contract their services to clients may, if they satisfy the necessary conditions of self-employment, be subject to the self-employed rate of PRSI of Class S rather than the employee rate of Class A. Class S contributors pay a lower rate and have access to the contributory State pension widow’s, widower’s or surviving civil partner’s pension (contributory), guardian’s payment (contributory), maternity benefit and adoptive benefit and, since September 2016, the newly introduced paternity benefit. Access to the treatment benefit scheme which includes free eye and dental exams, and contributions towards the cost of hearings aids was extended to Class S contributors in March 2017 and access to the Invalidity Pension scheme is being extended in December 2017.