Vol. 485 No. 2
283 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he will allow those on pre-retirement allowance to have their savings treated for means test purposes in the same way as non-contributory old age pensioners as an alternative to the present treatment of savings, in view of the fact that his Department should be permitting people on pre-retirement allowance to keep a small nest egg which would not be assessed as means. [23005/97]
Over the years different methods of assessing the value of capital, including savings, have been applied to the various social assistance schemes. However, more recently the process of standardising the assessment of capital across the different social assistance schemes has been initiated, so as to improve the equity of the system. The introduction of the disability allowance scheme in October 1996 and the one-parent family payment scheme in January 1997 presented the opportunity to commence this process. Under the new assessment provisions, the first £2,000 of capital is disregarded, the next £20,000 is assessed at 7.5 per cent of the capital value and the balance is assessed at 15 per cent.
The Social Welfare Act, 1997 provided for a further extension of the revised capital assessment provisions to the old age (non-contributory) pension and pre-retirement allowance schemes, as well as to the widow's and widow's (non-contributory) pension, orphan's (non-contributory) pension and carer's allowance schemes, with effect from 17 October, 1997.
This means, for instance, that recipients of pre-retirement allowance can now have capital of up to £3,386 and still qualify for the maximum rate of the allowance, while they can have up to £35,575 and still qualify for a minimum payment.
The process of standardising the assessment of capital across all of the social assistance schemes has been continued with the extension, in the 1998 budget, of the revised arrangements to recipients of the rent allowance for tenants affected by the decontrol of rents.
