Tony Gregory
Question:191 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if persons in receipt of deserted wife's allowance retain their payments while participating on community employment schemes. [15326/97]
Written Answers. - Community Employment Schemes.
Deserted wife's allowance (DWA) is only payable to those women over 40 years of age with no child dependants who were deserted by their husbands. Persons in receipt of this allowance are not entitled to participate in community employment (CE) as participation is restricted to the unemployed and lone parents with child dependants.
Women with child dependants deserted by their husbands could claim either deserted wife's benefit (DWB) or, since January of this year, one-parent family payment (OFP). Any lone parent in receipt of OFP is eligible to participate in community employment and a DWB recipient may transfer to OFP in order to participate. In assessing a person's means to determine the rate of OFP payable, the first £6,000 of the person's earnings — including earnings from community employment — are disregarded.
For example, a lone parent with one child participating in community employment and with no other income would receive £96.95 from his-her community employment which would still entitle him-her to maximum rate one-parent family payment of £82.70 a week. However, income tax is payable on the combined community employment one-parent family payment income. A lone parent participating in community employment will also retain any secondary benefits she or he might already be receiving such as rent allowance, fuel allowance, Christmas bonus etc.
I should add that with the introduction of the one-parent family payment in January this year, the concept of desertion has been removed from the social welfare code as title to OFP is not dependent on how the situation of lone parent-hood came about. As a result, the DWA and DWB payments were discontinued from January; however existing recipients retain their entitlement.