asked the Minister for Social Welfare the section of the Social Welfare Act, 1960, which specifies that persons over seventy years of age who have an average of at least twenty-four stamps or credits over the years since their entry into insurance are debarred from receiving contributory old age pension because of their failure to have at least twenty-four stamps or credits over the last fifteen or ten years before they reached seventy years of age.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Eligibility for Contributory Old Age Pensions.
28.
Section 25A. of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, which was inserted by Section 7 of the Social Welfare (Amendment) Act, 1960, provides that a person who has attained the age of 70 is entitled to old age (contributory) pension if he satisfies the relevant contribution conditions. These conditions are set out in Paragraph 6 of the Fourth Schedule to the 1952 Act, the paragraph having also been inserted by the 1960 Act. The provisions referred to relate only to insurance under the Social Welfare Acts which commenced on 5th January, 1953. If these provisions alone were applied, no person would have qualified for pension when the old age (contributory) pension scheme commenced on 6th January, 1961, or indeed would yet have qualified, as no person reaching the age of 70 up to this would have entered insurance under the Social Welfare Acts before reaching age of 60, which is the first condition to be satisfied for pension.
However, Section 66A of the Social Welfare Act, 1952 (inserted by Section 13 of the 1960 Act) gave power to count earlier insurance under the Social Welfare Acts and the National Health Insurance Acts for pension purposes and to modify the contribution conditions for pension. The wording of the section is that the earlier insurance
"shall be taken into account in such manner and subject to such conditions and limitations as may be prescribed."
The Social Welfare (Old Age (Contributory) Pension) (Transitional) Regulations, 1960 and 1961, were made in accordance with the authority thus given. These regulations do not debar anybody for pension who has a title to it. They enable persons, who otherwise would have no title, to qualify for pension. There are at present almost 35,000 such pensions in payment covering about 48,000 persons including dependants of pensioners
Does the Minister not admit that by invoking a clause which does not appear to have been considered when the Act was going through the House his Department are debarring those who had stamped cards for upwards of 40 years but who had not stamps as required over the past 15 years, and would he now reconsider the matter with a view to bringing these people in?
Far from that being the case these regulations have enabled pensions to be paid to about 35,000 people and allowances to some 13,000 dependants who otherwise would never have qualified and I think that could only be described as being very generous.
Would the Minister not agree that it was stretching what he calls generosity to bring in a penal clause under the Act? There was no reason why the people he mentioned should not have been included.
Far from its being a penal clause, it was put in to enable such people to qualify and far from debarring them, the transitional regulations made special provision for such people including a provision that each contribution under the National Health Insurance Acts would be deemed as two.