Vol. 517 No. 4
232 Mr. Perry asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the plans, if any, he has to make a percentage of the free schemes available to persons in receipt of pre-retirement pension in view of the fact that most recipients will not be in a position to secure employment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10067/00]
The free travel scheme is available to all people resident in the State aged 66 years or over, to all carers in receipt of carer's allowance, to carers of people in receipt of prescribed relatives and constant attendance allowance and also to certain people with disabilities under that age who are in receipt of certain welfare type payments.
The other free schemes are generally available to people living in the State, aged 66 years or over, who are in receipt of a social welfare type payment or who pass a means test. They are also available to carers and people with disabilities under the age of 66 who are in receipt of certain welfare type payments. In addition, widows/widowers between the ages of 60 and 65, whose late spouses were in receipt of the allowance, retain that entitlement.
As the Deputy is aware, a fundamental review of the free schemes of this Department has been completed and will be published next week by the Policy Institute, Trinity College Dublin, in the "Studies in Public Policy" series. The issue of extending the free schemes to groups other than those mentioned above is examined in the review.
In anticipation of the review findings, I announced two specific measures in budget 2000. These are the extension of the free schemes to all persons aged 75 years and over, regardless of their income and household composition and the extension of the free electricity allowance and free television licence to all carers in receipt of the carer's allowance and to carers who are caring for people in receipt of constant attendance or prescribed relatives allowance. Both of these measures will be implemented from October 2000 at an estimated full year cost of £6 million.
I will consider further measures when I examine the final report in the context of future budgetary policy.
233 Mr. D. Moynihan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the plans, if any, he has to allow credited contributions to persons who have some years of self-employed PRSI contributions paid and owing to ill health are now in receipt of means-tested disability allowance. [10071/00]
Regulations currently provide for the award of credited PRSI contributions to insured persons who qualify for disability allowance. This is subject to the rules which apply to credited contributions generally, in particular the condition that these can only be awarded to people who were previously in insurable employment. Credited contributions may not be awarded, however, where the last paid contribution made by the person in question was in respect of self-employment, class S.
Consideration of the question of providing for the award of class S credited contributions could not be confined to those persons qualifying for a particular welfare payment, such as disability allowance, but would also have to have regard to other groups formerly insured at class S. This could have considerable cost implications in terms of creating entitlements to benefits in the future.
