Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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463.To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will consider taking any legislative or policy measures in order to combat the recent finding in a report (details supplied) that women need to work an extra eight years to make up the pensions gender gap; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25119/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Pensions Gender Gap is a feature of occupational and private pensions as a result of lower contribution rates for women due to lower pay and breaks from the workforce as women tend to take more time out of workforce due to family caring responsibilities.

Many of the issues giving rise to the pensions gender gap need to be resolved through labour market access and pay-related equality. This is an international issue and not unique to Ireland. Periods of absence from the workplace for caring responsibilities are, in many cases, long-term in nature and, consequently, the potential exists that such persons will have ceased employment (with deferred pension entitlements under the relevant schemes).

The State pension system does not have a similar gap as it addresses this issue through the provision of universal contributions and the recognition of periods spent outside of the workforce for caring responsibilities. In the context of State Pension (Contributory), the current system provides measures including PRSI credits, Homemaking Disregards and HomeCaring Periods to recognise caring periods of up to 20 years outside of paid employment in the calculation of a payment rate.

A key measure I introduced from January 2024 is enhanced State Pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependents for over 20 years. It will do this by attributing paid social insurance contributions for State Pension (Contributory) purposes for periods of long-term care of 20 years or more. People who are in receipt of Carer’s Allowance are considered eligible for long-term carer’s contributions, subject to meeting the threshold of 20 years.

In relation to occupational pensions, one of the challenges is how the payment of credits for caring periods could be financed. If not by the person on career break, it would seem that it could only fall to the sponsoring employer or the other scheme members, or a combination of both, or alternatively through tax incentives targeted at couples, where one partner has left the workforce for caring purposes.

The forthcoming introduction of Automatic Enrolment represents a significant step in addressing existing pension coverage gaps in Ireland. AE will result in hundreds of thousands of women being enrolled in a supplementary pension for the first time and will assist in promoting access to supplementary pensions to women (where a gap currently exists).

The design of AE ensures that there will be equality of access to supplementary pensions, in particular for those with low to average earnings where pension coverage has traditionally been low. This is particularly relevant to women who have different experiences of employment in terms of employment rates, the prevalence of part-time work and lower earnings.

I hope this clarifies matters for the Deputy.