asked the Minister for Social Welfare the number of persons who have been disqualified from a contributory old age pension because of the period during which they were no longer contributing voluntarily.
Written Answers. - Social Welfare Statistics.
28.
It is assumed that the Deputy is concerned about persons whose entitlements to contributory old age pensions were affected through having breaks in their insurance records because of the operation of the remuneration limit which applied in the case of non-manual workers until the limit was abolished in 1974. No statistics are available of the numbers affected but it was estimated by an analyst that about 11,500 were in the age group that were likely to be involved and about 1,700 of these would have lost all entitlement to contributory pensions. In the vast majority of cases the breaks would have been caused by the operation of the remuneration limit but there could have been breaks for other reasons also, for example periods of self-employment or employment outside the State.