Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 6 Feb 1991

Vol. 404 No. 7

Written Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.

Michael Finucane

Ceist:

142 Mr. Finucane asked the Minister for Social Welfare the number of persons who are currently eligible for the contributory pension scheme for the self-employed; the number of contributors who are paying into this scheme and are debarred from payment of a contributory pension because of age and contribution criteria; and the plans or proposals he has to redress this situation.

Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Woods)

Self-employed people between the ages of 16 and 66 with reckonable income of £2,500 per year or more are insurable as self-employed contributors for old age and widows and orphans contributory pensions. There are some 143,000 people registered as self-employed contributors.

Insured people will generally be eligible for widows and orphans pension on the basis of three or more years contributions.

To qualify for the old age contributory pension, a person must have entered insurance at least ten years before pension age. This condition has applied to all contributors since the scheme was introduced in 1961. It is designed to ensure a reasonable level of contributions to the social insurance fund during the course of a person's working life for entitlement to pension. Accordingly, those who became insured for the first time when social insurance was extended to the self-employed in 1988 and who were then aged 56 or over will not qualify for the old age contributory pension. However, people in that age group who have been insured as employed persons for any period prior to age 56 could qualify for pension as their previous insurance can be combined with insurance as a self-employed contributor for pension purposes. It is not possible at this stage to estimate the total number of contributors who will not qualify for pension as a result of this condition or because of a deficiency of contributions generally.

One of the commitments which the Government has given in theProgramme for Economic and Social Progress is to examine the possibility, in the context of structural reform in agriculture, of providing a retirement income to older farmers who transfer or lease their holdings. The question of farmers over 56 who will not qualify for old age contributory pension will be considered in this context.

The National Pensions Board are currently examining all the conditions for entitlement to pensions for employees and the self-employed in the course of the preparation of their final report which is due to be completed by end June. I will take full account of the board's recommendations in considering further change to social welfare pension schemes.

Michael Creed

Ceist:

143 Mr. Creed asked the Minister for Social Welfare (1) the total cost to the Exchequer for the carer's allowance in 1990 and (2) the number of approved applicants for the carer's allowance who are in receipt of the maximum allowance.

Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Woods)

The carer's allowance scheme was launched on 1 November 1990. The total number of people in receipt of the allowances for carers at the end of December was 2,534. This figure includes those who transferred to carer's allowance having previously been in receipt of prescribed relative's allowance and those who retained their previous entitlement. The numbers in receipt of carer's allowance at the maximum weekly rate of £45 was 918 at the end of December. The cost of the initial applications for the new carer's allowance is estimated at £0.1 million in 1990. The bulk of the cost will arise in 1991.

The maximum weekly rate of carer's allowance will be increased to £50 from next July, and it will be extended to include people caring for recipients of disabled person's maintenance allowance in October.

Emmet Stagg

Ceist:

144 Mr. Stagg asked the Minister for Social Welfare (1) the number of recipients and (2) the expenditure on (a) orphan's contributory pensions, (b) orphan's non-contributory pension and (c) foster care allowance.

Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Woods)

The information requested by the Deputy is as follows:

	Recipients at Dec. 1990	Expenditure for 1990 1
		£million
Orphan's Contributory Pension	723	1.36
Orphan's Non-Contributory Pension	144	0.20
Foster Care Allowance	2,151 1	4.25

1 Provisional.

2 Under the aegis of the Department of Health.