The Benefit Payment for 65 year olds was introduced in line with the Programme for Government commitment, to provide a benefit payment for people who are aged 65 and who are required to retire, or who chose to retire, without a requirement to sign on, engage in activation measures or be available for and genuinely seeking work.
To be eligible for the payment a person must satisfy all the qualifying conditions of the scheme including the requirement to have the specified number of social insurance contributions paid. In the case of a self-employed person, they must have paid at least 156 PRSI contributions at Class S or have paid at least 104 PRSI contributions at Class A or H since entering employment and have paid 52 PRSI self-employment contributions at Class S in the Governing Contribution Year. The Governing Contribution Year is the second last complete tax year, for example, for a claim in 2021 the second last complete tax year is 2019.
The attribution of contributions in respect of periods impacted by the pandemic is intended to ensure that persons entitled to and in receipt of certain Covid-19 income supports, including PUP, will not be disadvantaged in accessing social insurance benefits in the future.
The legislation underpinning the measure makes provision for the Minister for Social Protection, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and having considered certain matters set out in the legislation, to prescribe the number of self-employment contributions to be attributed to a self-employed contributor.
A self-employed contributor has a period of time following the end of the contribution year to remit and pay his or her social insurance liability for that contribution year. For example, self-employed contributors have until the end of October 2021 to file their self-assessment tax returns for 2020, including the payment of social insurance contributions where they are liable to do so for that year.
Once data on the social insurance returns made by self-employed workers in respect of 2020 are available towards the end of this year or early in 2022, I and my colleague the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform will be in a position to prescribe, as appropriate, the number of self-employment contributions required to protect the social insurance entitlements of self-employed workers who were in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment in 2020 and who were not in a position to discharge their social insurance liability for that year.
