Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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251. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the steps she will take to deal with an anomaly which arose in respect of career’s allowance in the case of a person (detail supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52318/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of credited contributions (credits) is to protect social insurance entitlements by bridging gaps in an employee’s social insurance record, where they are not in a position to pay PRSI, such as for period of unemployment, illness or in receipt of certain payments, including carer’s allowance. In isolation, credits do not give entitlement to social insurance benefits. In combination with paid PRSI contributions, credits can assist employees qualifying for short-term schemes such as jobseeker’s benefit. Credits may also enhance the level of benefit for long-term schemes such as the level of payment of State pension contributory (SPC), but only where the individual has already met the condition relating to the minimum number of paid contributions.

To qualify for credits an individual must satisfy entitlement to the credits scheme. While there are no self-employed credits, individuals who were previously employed can access the scheme in the same manner as other workers, subject to meeting the conditions of the scheme. In general credits can only be awarded where an individual has had a recent attachment to the workforce as an employee i.e. within the last 2 years. Therefore credits are not automatically awarded to all recipients of carer’s allowance.

Individuals who are caring on a full-time basis, including those in receipt of carer’s allowance may, however, qualify for the homemaker’s scheme. The homemaker’s scheme is designed to help home-makers and carers protect their SPC entitlement, and applies to home-making periods since 6 April 1994. It applies to the self-employed on the same basis as it does to other workers.

The scheme provides that years spent working in the home while caring on a full-time basis for a child up to 12 years of age or an incapacitated person age 12 or over will be disregarded in calculating a person's yearly average number of contributions for the purposes of determining the rate of their entitlement to SPC. In this way the homemaker’s scheme ensures that an individual’s entitlement to SPC is protected during periods spent caring.