Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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431. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he has plans to ensure that families who provide the wonderful service of a foster family to children in need will be given stamps towards their pensions (details supplied). [56289/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am aware that eligibility in respect of the State Pension (Contributory) is an issue of genuine concern for foster carers. The Department of Social Protection has some measures available to recognise caring periods outside of paid employment in the calculation of a State Pension payment. Credit for Home Caring Periods may be awarded to a maximum of 20 years and foster carers are entitled to the benefits of this scheme, on the same basis as other carers, once certain qualifying criteria are met.

Further, the Report of the Pensions Commission contains a recommendation in respect of long-term carers.

Specifically, the Commission recommends that long-term carers (defined as caring for more than 20 years) should be given access to the State Pension Contributory by having retrospective contributions paid for them by the Exchequer when approaching pension age for any gaps in their contribution history arising from caring.

The Report goes on to state that the contributions would be exclusively for State Pension Contributory purposes, and would be recognised as paid contributions both for the purposes of the qualifying for the State Pension Contributory and for the purposes of calculating pension rate entitlement under the Total Contributions Approach.

I can advise that officials from my Department have been engaging with their counterparts in the Department of Social Protection in respect of this recommendation, in relation to the inclusion of foster carers within the cohort of long term carers.

I will continue to work with my Government colleagues, Tusla and any other relevant stakeholders in the coming months to improve the supports available to foster carers.