Vol. 517 No. 6
50 Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if rent allowance is available under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme for separated fathers seeking to provide accommodation for their children where there are formal or informal joint custody arrangements; and if the separated father is precluded from this support where the special rent allowance is payable to the separated mother. [10570/00]
Under the supplementary welfare allowance – SWA – scheme a weekly supplement may be paid in respect of rent to eligible people in receipt of social welfare or health board payments. Entitlement to a supplement is determined by the health boards. Supplements are normally calculated to ensure that the person, after payment of rent or mortgage interest, has an income equal to the rate of SWA appropriate to the family circumstances less £6. This £6 represents the minimum contribution which rent supplement recipients are required to pay from their own resources. Applicants are also required to contribute any assessable means in excess of the appropriate rate.
An application for a rent supplement can be made by contacting the CWO at a person's local health centre. Any person seeking a rent supplement must first satisfy the health board that they have a housing need they are unable to meet from their own resources. In addition, the health board must be satisfied that the residence is reasonably suited to the residential and other needs of the claimant.
Separated fathers are not precluded from obtaining rent supplement where they have custody or joint custody and they need to provide accommodation for their children. In a case where a separated couple have joint custody of a child, the requirements of both parents in respect of having adequate accommodation to look after the child are taken into account when an application for a rent supplement is made. In these cases, documentation is required showing the joint custody arrangement before a decision could be made. The fact that the separated mother is in receipt of rent supplement would not in itself preclude the separated father from being entitled to assistance towards his rent. Each case is individually assessed on its merits, taking all matters of the case into account.
Does the Minister accept the old attitude was that the children would live with the deserted or deserting mother and the father would look after himself? Does he accept this attitude must change given that the case I highlighted involved informal joint custody? Does he accept the official attitude to that has not changed? The deserted father in the case I highlighted receives a net figure of £37 because he cannot get supplementary welfare to provide accommodation for his children who stay with him for half the week. Does he agree that in such circumstances attitudes must change and that we must accept and encourage joint parenting as the best option for children to continue to have access to both parents? Does he agree that, in a case such as I have described – I can give the Minister the details if he is interested – the father who has been deserted should not be precluded by order of the health board because a supplementary welfare allowance is paid to the deserting wife?
The Deputy is correct in saying that circumstances in society are changing. The courts now award joint custody more often than they did. Obviously the social welfare system must take that into account. Rent supplement is not necessarily refused to a separated father in a joint custody case. Each case is determined on its merits. The Deputy previously referred to a case and I will not go into the detail. In that instance, the father received a rent supplement. It may not be the same case. If the Deputy has a case in mind, perhaps he would table a question about it.
In the case I refer to now, there was a rent supplement for a single person only. The result was that the father had to pay the balance of the rent from his unemployment assistance, giving him a net £37 a week. He was told by the health board that he was not con sidered to be in need of accommodation for his children as they were already adequately accommodated in his wife's house nearby. Does the Minister accept that, as the children are accommodated for half the week in the deserted or deserting wife's house, the husband should not be precluded and that the attitude must change not just at political but also at bureaucratic and official level?
Attitudes have changed. Either person in a couple is not precluded from receiving rent supplement to the level required to care for children. However, the Deputy must accept that, in a joint custody case, the child will stay with one parent for perhaps three days a week and with the other for four days a week. It is up to the community welfare officer in each area to decide on these cases and I have encountered cases in my constituency where the CWO must make a decision based on each case. Perhaps the Deputy could bring the case to which he refers to my attention. It may be the same case in Clonakilty which he cited previously, and that was a decision made independently of me by the CWO.
In that case the appeals office decided that he could not receive supplementary welfare to enable him to have a room for his children because the health board was already paying an allowance in respect of their accommodation with their mother. That is the decision of the appeals office. Does the Minister accept that type of approach is wrong, that we must change it and that we must ensure change percolates through the system for which the Minister is now responsible?
It may be that, in that instance, the CWO and the appeals office decided, on the merits of that case, that the payment of the additional supplement was not warranted. If the Deputy knows the case well, he will know the people were living very close to each other.
The wife was working.
There are other cases where rent supplement is paid on the basis of the general principle of the question.
