I have announced the introduction of a special old age contributory pension for a very specific group of people. These are self-employed people who were 56 years of age or over in April 1988 when social insurance was extended to the self-employed. As a result, this group narrowly failed to qualify for a pension, through no fault of their own, as they did not satisfy the requirement of having entered insurance at least ten years before pension age. The pension is not being extended to employees as that group are not in the same insurability position as the self-employed group.
Title to this new pension will be created from April next and payment will commence from October. It will be payable to those self-employed who were aged 56 or over when they entered social insurance in April 1988 and who have at least five years reckonable contributions paid since then.
As the Deputy may be aware, both self-employed and employed people can qualify for a standard old age contributory pension if they satisfy the qualifying conditions, namely, that they have entered social insurance before reaching the age of 56; have 156 full employment contributions paid, from April 2002, this will increase to a minimum of 260 paid contributions and to a minimum of 520 from April 2012; and have a yearly average of at least 20 contributions, or 24 in the case of a retirement pension, paid and or credited from 1953, or the time they started insurable employment, if later, to the end of the tax year prior to reaching pension age.
Where a person fails to satisfy the yearly average qualifying condition, he or she may qualify for a pro rata old age contributory pension, which was introduced in November 1997, if the yearly average is between ten and 19 and at least 260 contributions have been paid in total.