The same qualifying conditions for the old age contributory pension apply to all insured people, both employees and self-employed. These qualifying conditions require a person to have entered social insurance at least ten years before reaching pensionable age, which is 66 and have a minimum of 156 contributions paid. In line with the recommendations of the national pensions board, this requirement will increase to 260 and 520 paid contributions from April 2002 and April 2012, respectively and have a yearly average of at least ten contributions paid or credited from 1953 or the date of entry into social insurance, if later.
However, in line with this Government's commitment to extend contributory pensions coverage to people who narrowly failed to qualify for a pension, I introduced, last April, special arrangements 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 who could not qualify for a pension as they did not satisfy the standard requirement of having entered insurance at least ten years before pension age.
An old age contributory pension is, therefore, now available to those self-employed people who were aged 56 or over in April 1988 and who have, at least, five years contributions paid since then. The rationale behind this five-year paid contribution condition is to ensure that entitlement to a pension is limited to those who have made some reasonable level of contributions to the social insurance fund during the course of their careers. Payment is at a flat-rate of 50 per cent of the standard maximum rate with equivalent increases for adult and child dependants, where applicable.
I consider these arrangements to be fair, reflecting a certain consistency of commitment to the social insurance fund, over a given period of time.
