asked the Minister for Local Government why some of the persons recommended for allotments by Ceanannas Mór Urban Council have been refused sanction by him because their income is in excess of £98 10s. per annum; and if in view of the fact that this decision debars some men who are on unemployment assistance he will reconsider the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Ceanannas Mór Allotments.
27.
I have no functions in the selection of persons to whom allotments are allocated. The local authority has full discretion in the matter but if they let allotments to an unemployed person at a reduced or nominal rent the difference between such rent and the economic rent may be recouped from the Vote for my Department. The statutory definition of "unemployed person" includes a person in receipt of unemployment assistance. The regulations extend the definition to include casually employed persons whose earnings in the previous 12 months did not exceed £98 16s.
Will the Minister say whether or not it is a fact that his Department recently refused to sanction certain persons who were given allotments under such a scheme as he has outlined because of the fact that their income was over £98 16s.? The Minister refused to sanction them.
Sanction what? I did not catch the first part of the Deputy's question?
Certain people who were given allotments.
No, I do not have anything to do with sanctioning the people who get allotments. I said that quite clearly in my reply.
Is the Minister not aware that Kells Urban Council have selected certain people for allotments and have submitted their names to the Minister's Department and the Department have intimated that certain people are ineligible because their incomes are over £98 16s.?
Let me get the thing quite clear. I think what the Deputy is saying may be so but not in the way he put it. I have no function in the selection of the allottees or sanctioning those proposed to be given allotments, but what presumably may have happened is that persons for whom recoupment has been claimed from my Department have in fact incomes greater than the stipulated £98 16s. It is purely on the recoupment and only on the recoupment that the Minister for Local Government enters into it.
Surely the Minister will agree that £98 16s. per year is the income which a married man with one child who has been the whole year on unemployment assistance could be getting? Will the Minister not agree that that figure represents an unreal sum?
In reply to that, if the person is in receipt of unemployment assistance, even for the whole year, and even though the figure might exceed the figure mentioned here, that person is still regarded as an unemployed person but if he is casually employed and if his earnings exceed £98 16s. and the recoupment is not paid by my Department to the local authority nothing said here precludes that local authority from subsidising the rent or rate at which they let this allotment to a deserving case.
Surely the £98 16s. referred to in the Minister's original reply referred to earnings and not to benefits derived from the Department of Social Welfare?
That is what I am putting to the Deputy.
It is exclusive of any benefit or assistance given.