Self-employed workers who earn €5,000 or more in a contribution year, including those brought into social insurance as a result of Directive 2010/14/EU, are liable for PRSI at the class S rate of 4%, subject to a minimum annual payment of €500. This provides them with access to the following benefits: State pension (contributory), widow’s, widower’s or surviving civil partner’s pension (contributory), guardian’s payment (contributory), maternity benefit, adoptive benefit, paternity benefit, treatment benefit (from March 2017). Entitlement to invalidity pension was extended to the self-employed from December 2017.
It is not possible to assess the specific cost of State pension (contributory) to those affected by the implementation of the provision as it is not possible to identify these “assisting relatives”. They make a normal Class S self-employed contribution and qualify for social welfare entitlements on that basis. However, at the time of the introduction of the provision, numbers affected were thought to be relatively small. Census 2011 data suggested that prior to the change, the exclusion from social insurance affected less than 6,000 assisting spouses/civil partners who assist in family businesses. The 2011 data indicated that there were 5,872 “assisting relatives” of which 3,315 were female and 2,557 were male. Some of these “assisting relatives” could have been family members other than spouses/civil partners.
In addition, many spouses/civil partners who were affected by the exclusion from social insurance and who gained access to State pension contributory in their own right, may already have been entitled to the means tested increase for a qualified adult. Therefore the incremental costs of entitlement to State pension contributory are unlikely to be significant.
