Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 section 149

Entitlement to allowance

Section 149 establishes the pre-retirement allowance, setting out the eligibility criteria, how means are calculated, and the circumstances under which payment continues or ceases.

• Claimants must be within a prescribed age range (below pensionable age), have means below the allowance threshold, and meet qualifying conditions such as prior receipt of jobseeker's payments, being a separated spouse or civil partner not in employment, or having ceased to receive one-parent family payment or carer's allowance.
• Separated spouses and civil partners whose relationships have been dissolved continue to be treated as such for eligibility purposes, but allowance stops if they remarry, enter a new civil partnership, or become cohabitants.
• Weekly means are calculated by dividing yearly means by 52, with rounding rules applied; where a spouse, civil partner, or cohabitant receives certain payments or falls within specified categories, the claimant's means are halved.
• The allowance is closed to new claims from a prescribed date, but this does not affect continuous retirement periods that began earlier or former carers who previously received the allowance.