Vol. 517 No. 6
59 Mr. McDowell asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the number of persons in receipt of family income supplement; the way in which this compares with the Revenue Commissioners' figures for families within the appropriate earning limits; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10522/00]
80 Dr. Upton asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the plans, if any, he has to expand family income supplement; and his views on whether it is a preferred option to have the Government introduce positive tax credits for poorer families along the lines of the United Kingdom model. [10540/00]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 59 and 80 together.
The number of claimants in receipt of family income supplement (FIS) at end-March 2000 was 14,399. Entitlement to FIS is related to current household income and the number of dependant children in the family, as well as to the number of hours worked per week. As the Revenue Commissioners do not as a matter of course capture data relating to children or to hours worked, it is not possible to draw any meaningful comparisons between the level of take-up of FIS and data held by the Revenue Commissioners on the number of taxpayers coming within the various FIS income bands.
The new Programme for Prosperity and Fairness includes a commitment that a working group will be established to examine the role which refundable tax credits can play in the tax and welfare systems. This working group will also examine the possibility of paying FIS through the tax system.
The two issues are closely related since a substantial number of FIS claimants have income which comes below the tax exemption limits appropriate to their family size. In order for such families to benefit from a tax credits system the payment would have to take the form of a refundable tax credit.
There are other issues also which will have to be addressed by the working group. As I mentioned earlier, entitlement to FIS is not determined solely on the basis of the claimant's current earnings. Account is also taken of family size, hours worked, the likely duration of employment, as well as any earnings which the spouse or partner of the claimant, where relevant, may have. Not all of this information is collected at present through tax returns made to the Revenue Commissioners, and the tax system is therefore not at present capable of automatically identifying the households with an entitlement to FIS. Indeed earnings information would not generally be available to the Revenue Commissioners until some time after the end of the tax year in which it is earned. Any payment through the tax system would therefore still have to operate on the basis of the individual in the first instance supplying the additional information needed to establish entitlement to the payment.
