asked the Minister for Social Welfare if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the free electricity allowance scheme is now being administered on the basis that relatives assisting semi-invalided applicants are being faced with the choice of giving up work and applying for prescribed relative allowance in order to continue entitlement; whether such consequences are undesirable; and if he will take steps to ensure that the scheme is implemented in such a way as to avoid these consequences.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Free Electricity Allowance.
3.
To qualify for a free electricity allowance, a person in receipt of a qualifying payment must either reside entirely alone or with persons who come within certain excepted categories.
A person providing full time care and attention to an invalided applicant is accepted as coming within the categories for satisfying the "living alone" condition of the scheme. It is not a condition of the scheme that a prescribed relative allowance be payable in such cases, but as a rule this would be the case.
Where care is provided otherwise than on a full time basis, for example, where the carer is working outside the home, free electricity allowance is not payable. This is not a new requirement, but one which dates from the early days of the scheme. It was never intended that households would qualify in which members were gainfully occupied.
Changes along the lines suggested by the Deputy would alter the nature of the scheme and would have significant cost implications. I have no proposals for such changes in present circumstances.
Has the Minister any plans to change the free electricity scheme? Has he any thoughts in that direction?
My main efforts are towards preserving it for the existing beneficiaries at this time.
Would the Minister consider allowing prescribed relatives to do work outside the home under class J insurance, that is, for less than 18 hours per week?
We are now having an extension of the scope of the question.
This is about employment having to be given up by prescribed relatives. I am asking if the Minister requires a total giving up of all employment, or if he would give an opportunity of taking up part time employment under the readymade category of class J social insurance?
The Deputy will appreciate, as a former Minister for Finance, that any extension of the scheme would bring additional costs. I do not have additional funds available at present. I appreciate that the Deputy is trying to limit the additional cost in a particular way and understand his concern in that direction. The total number of pensioners within the eligible categories is over 350,000 and, of these, some 174,000 are receiving the free electricity allowance. If all eligible pensioners were to qualify, the cost of the scheme could double from £20.74 million in 1988 terms to over £40 million a year. That is the size of the problem in terms of cost. The Deputy is suggesting a more limited extension but that, too, would involve cost and is a budgetary matter.
What cost?
That question has not been put down.
Would the Minister find out?
I shall find out and communicate with the Deputy.
Would the Minister not accept that the major anomaly with regard to the free electricity scheme is that quite well-off people who meet the living alone criterion get free electricity and people in quite poor circumstances, because they have a relative living with them, do not get that allowance? Would the Minister not consider that some reform of the free electricity allowance criterion is overdue?
That reflects on all the insurance benefits under the social welfare system and opens up a much wider question.
That is not the question.
It is a question of introducing income limits on entitlements where people are insured.
That is not the question.
As the Deputy knows, there is no income limit in those circumstances.
Let us make some progress. We have only dealt with three questions in half an hour. I want to deal with the Deputy's next question.