asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he is aware that married women in part-time employment, and earning less than £14 per week, are required to pay a pay-related benefit contribution, even though they are not eligible for pay-related benefit; and if he will remedy this anomaly.
Ceisteanna—Questions . Oral Answers . - Married Women's Social Welfare Contribution .
32.
: Pay-related contributions are payable at the rate of 3 per cent of all earnings up to a ceiling of £2,500 a year in respect of all employees, men or women, insured at the ordinary or agricultural weekly flat-rate of contribution, including part-time employees.
Earnings up to £14 a week do not attract pay-related benefit but it was not possible to exclude such earnings from the collection of the pay-related contribution. The weekly flat-rate contributions of the employees affected were therefore reduced by 42p, that is 3 per cent of £14, as from 1 April 1974, when the pay-related benefit scheme commenced, and this reduction has since been maintained. The reduction is made up of 28p for the employer's 2 per cent share, and of 14p for the employee's 1 per cent share of the weekly contribution. As a result persons earning £14 have their pay-related contribution fully offset by the reduction in their flat-rate contribution, while those earning less than £14 gain, as their pay-related contribution is less than the amount of the reduction.