John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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380. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the history of contributions made by a person (details supplied) is sufficient to qualify the person for invalidity pension. [2425/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Invalidity Pension (IP) is payable to an insured person who satisfies certain Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) contribution conditions and who is permanently incapable of work due to an illness or incapacity and for no other reason.

To qualify for IP, an applicant must have at least 260 (5 years) paid PRSI contributions since entering social insurance and 48 contributions paid or credited in the last or second last complete contribution year before the relevant date of their claim. PRSI classes A, E ,H & S contributions only are reckonable for IP purposes.

The relevant date is:

(a)any date after the completion of one year of continuous incapacity for work, or

(b)any lesser period that may be prescribed, subject to the conditions and in the circumstances that may be prescribed

where the insured person has entered into a continuous period of incapacity for work and he or she is subsequently proved to be permanently incapable of work.

A further qualifying condition for IP is that a person must be regarded as being permanently incapable of work. A person is regarded as being permanently incapable of work if:

• for the period of 1 year immediately before the date of application, the person had been continuously incapable of work and a Deciding Officer or an Appeals Officer is satisfied that the person is likely to continue to be incapable of work for at least another year; or
• a Deciding Officer or an Appeals Officer is satisfied that the likelihood is that the person will be incapable of work for life.