Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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There were no structural changes introduced to the State Pension since I took office on 27^thJune 2020.

As part of the Budget process in January 2022, the rate of payment for the State Pension Contributory (maximum rate) increased from €248.30 to €253.30, followed by a further increase in January 2023 to €265.30.

The breakdown requested by the Deputy may be found in the Department’s Annual Statistics Reports as follows -

• Page 37 of the Department's Annual Statistics Report for 2020, which can be found at: www.gov.ie/en/organisation-information/e4517-social-protection-annual-statistics-report-archive
• Page 39 of the Department's Annual Statistics Report for 2021, which can be found at www.gov.ie/en/publication/9262a-2021-annual-statistics-report/

The Department's Statistical Report for 2022 will be published shortly.

The Deputy should note, in September 2022, I announced a series of landmark reforms to the State Pension system. The measures are in response to the Pensions Commission’s recommendations and represent the biggest ever structural reform of the Irish State Pension system.

These measures include:

• The State Pension age to remain at 66 years of age.
• Rather than fixating on the idea of a single State Pension age, flexibility will be introduced to the State Pension (Contributory) from January 2024:
• A person will be able to defer access to between age 66 and 70 and receive an actuarially based increase in their weekly payment rate.
• A person with less than 40 years' contributions can use the period between 66 and 70 years of age to build up additional entitlements and, if a person has less than 10 years PRSI reckonable paid contributions, they can use this period to help establish entitlement.
• Long-term sustainability of the State Pension system to be addressed through gradual, incremental increases in social insurance rates.
• The introduction of enhanced State Pension provision for long-term carers (in excess of 20 years) will be introduced from January 2024.
• A smoothed earnings method to calculating a benchmarked/indexed rate of State Pension payments will be introduced as an input to the annual budget process and will be submitted to Government in September each year (from 2023).
• There will be a 10-year phased full transition to the Total Contributions Approach, together with a phased abolition of the Yearly Average approach.
• Workers will be provided with access to a social insurance contribution statement service each year in a manner that enables them to understand their entitlements derived from these contributions.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will introduce measures that allow, but do not compel, an employee to stay in employment until the State Pension age.

These reforms are being worked on right now with a view to implementation in 2024.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.