Today I was delighted to see that the Min. for Social Protection closed the loophole that saw 40,000 pensioners, most of them Women loosing out on around €1,500 a year. This is a step at giving back these people a fair state pension.
Below is a summary of what has changed.
Government announces significant improvements to pension calculations for post 2012 pensioners with contribution gaps for homemaking and caring who were assessed under the pension rate band changes in 2012
A Total Contributions Approach (TCA) including a new ‘HomeCaring Credit’ of up to 20 years will address anomalies from the yearly averaging system
Over 40,000 pensioners assessed under the 2012 rate band changes will be contacted from Autumn 2018 and invited to have their pensions reviewed
Pensioners who qualified after 2012 will receive the higher of their current rate or the new TCA rate
Higher rates will commence from 30th March 2018
First payments at these higher rates and any arrears payable from 30th March 2018 will be made in Q1 2019
From now until the full implementation of the TCA, this option will be available to all new pension applicants
