As the House will be aware, on 7 October I announced that the Christmas bonus for 2002 will again be paid at a rate equivalent to 100% of the person's normal weekly payment, but with an increased minimum payment of €30. The cost of this measure is estimated to be €103.3 million. Payment will be made in early December and it is estimated that it will benefit 1.1 million persons comprising 740,000 recipients and an estimated 400,000 dependants.
The bonus will be paid, as in previous years, to recipients of all long-term social welfare payments including retirement and old age pensioners, widows, widowers and one-parent families, carers, invalidity pension and disability allowance recipients, persons in receipt of long-term unemployment assistance and farm assist and people on employment support payments.
Recipients of short-term payments do not qualify for the Christmas bonus. This includes persons in receipt of short-term unemployment payments and disability benefit, maternity benefit, carer's benefit, family income supplement and supplementary welfare allowance. An estimated 190,000 people receive these short-term weekly payments.
The focus of the Christmas bonus has always been on long-term welfare payment recipients who rely on the social welfare system for financial support over the long-term. There are no plans to extend entitlement to the bonus payment to short-term schemes and any such extension could only be considered in a budgetary context having regard to the resources available and the significant cost which would be involved.