Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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578. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons signing for homemakers credits; the percentage of the estimated number of homemakers this represents; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30848/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The homemaker’s scheme was introduced on 6 April 1994 and provides that a period of up to 20 years spent caring for children under 12 years of age (or caring for incapacitated people over that age) can be disregarded when a person’s social insurance record is being averaged for pension purposes; subject to the standard qualifying conditions for state pension (contributory) also being satisfied.

Recipients of child benefit (who are providing the child with fulltime care), carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit or carer’s support grant are automatically entitled to the homemaker’s scheme and are not required to make a separate application. Their entitlement is taken into consideration when they reach pension age and when their state pension (contributory) entitlement is being calculated.

As the majority of the homemaking periods are only registered when a person reaches pension age, my Department does not have statistics on the number of persons who are currently homemaking. In total, 25,000 homemaking periods have been registered with the Department since the start of the scheme.