Vol. 537 No. 1
30 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he will allow all contributions pre-1953 and post-1953, PAYE and self employed, to be included in the calculation for determination of maximum contributory old age pension; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15310/01]
To qualify for an old age contributory pension a person must enter social insurance before age 56, for the old age contributory pension, and age 55 for the retirement pen sion; have a minimum of 156 full rate contributions paid or 260 if the yearly average is less than 20 – this requirement will, for all contributors, 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 – when the unified system of social insurance came into effect – or the date of entry into social insurance, if later. A yearly average of 48 contributions is required for a full rate pension.
In general, all contributions paid or credited, at the appropriate rate, on a person's record are assessed when their entitlement to a pension is being examined. However, only contributions made under the unified social insurance scheme, introduced in 1953, can be used to satisfy the average contributions test. Contributions paid prior to 1953 may only be used to satisfy the first two conditions outlined above.
While there are no plans to allow pre-1953 contributions to be taken into account for the yearly average test, further recognition was afforded these contributions in budget 2000 with the introduction from May 2000 of a special half rate pension aimed at people with pre-1953 insurance who cannot satisfy the yearly average test.
In order to qualify a total of 260 contributions, comprising a mixture of pre-1953 and post-1953, is required. This is in line with this Government's commitment to ensuring the widest possible coverage for old age contributory pensions. Other measures taken include a reduction in the average number of contributions required for pension purposes to ten, introduced in 1997, and the provision of special pensions for self-employed people who were already over 56 years of age when compulsory was introduced for this group.
Further improvements in the pensions area will be examined on foot of the second phase of the pensions review which I expect to receive later this year.
