The social welfare pension rights of those who take time out of the workforce for caring duties are protected by the homemaker's scheme. The scheme was introduced from 1994 and allows up to 20 years spent on caring duties to be disregarded when a person's insurance record is being averaged to assess entitlement for contributory pension purposes. However, the scheme will not of itself qualify a person for a pension as the standard qualifying conditions relating to the type and number of contributions paid or credited must also be satisfied.
In August 2000, the Department published a review of the qualifying conditions for old age contributory and retirement pensions. This review also included a general examination of the homemaker's scheme and the report suggested a number of reforms for further consideration. These included the possibility of changing the operative date of the scheme and replacing the disregard system with one based on actual credited contributions. The question of backdating the homemaker's scheme is being examined but it does give rise to difficult and complex issues, not least of which is the position of other groups excluded from social insurance cover over the years and who do not qualify for contributory pensions.
The cost of backdating the homemaker's scheme is difficult to estimate as it depends on the date from which the scheme would operate and the improvement it would make in pensions paid to existing social welfare pensioners and the number of new pensions that would result. In this regard, there are a number of dates from which the scheme might be made operative. If the scheme were backdated to 1953 when the unified system of social insurance was introduced, the estimated cost is €250 million. The question of improvements in the homemaker scheme is something which would have to be considered in a budgetary context.