Austin Deasy
Question:153 Mr. Deasy asked the Minister for Social Welfare the social welfare payments and services that are provided through post offices on behalf of his Department. [12265/96]
Written Answers. - Social Welfare Services.
An Post is the principal agency through which payments are delivered to social welfare customers. At present, An Post delivers approximately 755,000 weekly and 520,000 monthly payments to social welfare customers. The total value of payments made by An Post each week amounts to some £52.4 million. It is estimated that An Post will deliver about 46 million payments to social welfare customers during 1996. Details of the scheme types and volumes involved are given in the table attached.
In addition to payment services, An Post also provides special savings bank deposit accounts into which social welfare customers may opt to have certain pension and child benefit payments transferred electronically. At present, 1,370 pensioners and 6,159 child benefit customers avail of this service.
An Post also provides a household budgeting facility for unemployed customers who may opt to have deductions made from their weekly payments and remitted on their behalf to a range of utilities. These include 46 local authorities and the St. Pancras Housing Association in respect of housing rents, Telecom Éireann in respect of telephone charges and the Electricity Supply Board and Bord Gáis in respect of energy charges. At present over 9,500 unemployed customers avail of the household budgeting service. It is planned to extend this facility to the lone parent customer group later this year.
An Post provides a collection service to certain categories of self-employed people who pay their self-employment contributions through the post offices.
Post offices carry a range of social welfare information leaflets and application forms for a number of social welfare schemes.
Table
Average Volume of Payments at Post Offices, by Scheme
|
Weekly Payments |
|
|
Old Age Contributory Pension |
62,000 |
|
Old Age Non-Contributory Pension |
102,000 |
|
Retirement Pension |
59,000 |
|
Survivor's Contributory Pension |
90,000 |
|
Widow's Non-Contributory Pension |
19,000 |
|
Orphan's Contributory Pension |
500 |
|
Orphan's Non-Contributory Pension |
200 |
|
Invalidity Pension |
53,000 |
|
Deserted Wife's Benefit |
24,000 |
|
Deserted Wife's Allowance |
2,000 |
|
Lone Parent (Unmarried Parent) Pension |
35,000 |
|
Survivor's Benefit |
600 |
|
Free Fuel |
3,000 |
|
Lone Parent (Widowed Parent) Pension |
2,000 |
|
Lone Parent (Separated Spouse) Allowance |
11,000 |
|
Pre-Retirement Allowance |
17,000 |
|
Carer's Allowance |
10,000 |
|
Lone Parent (Prisoner's Spouse) Allowance |
100 |
|
Long-Term Unemployment Assistance |
16,000 |
|
Long-Term Disability Benefit |
25,000 |
|
Family Income Supplement |
11,000 |
|
Back-To-Work Scheme |
14,000 |
|
Blind Person's Pension |
3,000 |
|
Unemployment Payments |
196,000 |
|
Total |
755,400 |
|
Monthly Payments |
|
|
Child Benefit |
520,000 |