Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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64. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if her Department is undertaking a review of the criteria for qualification for the State pension; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46415/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, the Pensions Commission was established in November 2020 to examine sustainability and eligibility issues in respect of the State Pension.

The Government considered the report of the Pensions Commission carefully and in response, I announced a series of landmark reforms to the State Pension system in September 2022.

These reforms include a range of measures affecting eligibility for State Pension (Contributory), including:

1. A decision that the State Pension age will remain at 66 years of age.

2. Flexibility will be introduced to the State Pension (Contributory) allowing a person to defer access between age 66 and 70 and receive an actuarially based increase in their weekly payment rate. This will also allow a person with less than 40 years contributions to use the period between 66 and 70 years of age to build up additional entitlements. If a person has less than the required 10 years PRSI reckonable paid contributions, they may be able to use this period to qualify for a State Pension (Contributory).

3. The introduction of enhanced State Pension provision for people who have been providing full time care to incapacitated dependents for 20 years or more. This may assist long-term carers in these circumstances who currently may not be able to qualify for the State Pension (Contributory) by attributing the equivalent of paid contributions to them for those caring periods.

4. There will also be a 10-year phased full transition to the Total Contributions Approach, together with a phased abolition of the Yearly Average approach.

I expect to bring the legislation required to introduce these measures before the Oireachtas soon, with proposals to be implemented from January 2024.

I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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State pension non-contributory is a fully means-tested payment for applicants aged 66 and over, habitually residing in the State, who do not qualify for a state pension contributory.

Under the Department’s Compliance and Anti-Fraud Strategy, the state pension non-contributory scheme area has a commitment to an annual level of control reviews and operates an ongoing continuous schedule of control and review activity. The objective is to ensure that customers continue to receive their correct rate of payment over the lifetime of their claim. On review, claimants may have their weekly payment rate unchanged or adjusted upwards or downwards as appropriate, based on their up-to-date means assessment.

Reviews can arise from customer requests for a review of their claim, from targeted and random case selections, or where specific information comes to the attention of the Department. Factors such as length of time since last review, or where information is received from other agencies such as the Revenue Commissioners, or from members of the public, can also trigger control reviews.

Information letters are issued annually to a proportion of recipients, on a rolling basis, to remind them of the conditions for continuing receipt of their state pension non-contributory payment and their obligation to notify the Department of changes in their circumstances in a timely manner.

There are currently 99,452 customers receiving the state pension non-contributory. The number of control reviews carried out on state pension non-contributory claims to the end of September this year is 10,191. Of this number, 605 resulted in the payment of state pension non-contributory being stopped.

The Department is committed to ensuring that the principles of due process and natural justice are followed in all state pension non-contributory claim decisions. This applies equally to decisions at initial claim stage and when claims are subsequently reviewed.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.