Written answers

Tuesday, 27 November 2018

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

State Pension (Contributory) Eligibility

Photo of Clare DalyClare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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580. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if periods spent caring for an adult needing an increased level of care will count as homecaring periods if the person doing the caring was not in receipt of carer's allowance or benefit as a result of being above the means test threshold for those payments during the period of care; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49165/18]

Photo of Regina DohertyRegina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Government intends to introduce a Total Contributions Approach (TCA) to establishing the level of entitlement for all new state pension contributory claims from 2020 onwards (TCA2020).   It is intended that this scheme will include provisions for periods of home-caring.  I launched a public consultation on this proposal earlier this year in May, which closed in early September.  The consultation sought input on a range of relevant factors which included the amount of contributions needed for a full rate contributory state pension, the amount of credited contributions a person could avail of, the level of provision of Homecaring periods, and whether there would be a "phase-in period" for the final model. 

Following examination and consideration of the submissions to the consultation, my officials will prepare proposals for the design of the new approach for consideration by the Government in due course.  Once the model is implemented, calculation of a person's pension will take into consideration all paid contributions, all credited contributions and all periods of homecaring subject to whatever limits are imposed through the implementing legislation.

In advance of this, on 23 January last, the Government agreed to allow pensioners, born on or after the 1st September 1946, affected by the 2012 changes in rate bands, to have their state pension (contributory) entitlement calculated under an interim “Total Contributions Approach” (TCA). The changes also provide for up to 20 years of home caring periods in the calculation of that entitlement, for those who took time out of the workplace for parenting children under age 12, or individuals who needed increased levels of care.  There is no post-1994 restriction on the years during which this caring period will have taken place.

While periods of Carer's Benefit or Carer's Allowance may be taken as evidence of having been a carer, people who did not satisfy the PRSI conditions of the Carer's Benefit scheme, nor the means-test of the Carer's Allowance scheme, may still be awarded HomeCaring periods, if it is established that they were full-time carers during the periods in question.  Such awards will be made on a case-by-case basis.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.  

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