Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 Nov 1997

Vol. 152 No. 10

Adjournment Matters. - Community Employment Benefits.

Mr. Costello

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish to raise on the Adjournment the need to ensure that people on community employment schemes get their full entitlement to secondary benefits and have those benefits for the duration of the scheme.

A serious anomaly has come to my attention with regard to this matter. It seems that the officials in the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs are being devilishly clever in the operation of the community employment scheme. In the 1996 budget the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Quinn, extended medical card benefits to all who had been unemployed for a period of 12 months for a period of three years on taking up employment. Anybody on the live register was entitled to hold on to their medical card and that applied to people coming on FÁS community employment schemes. It was a welcome development in terms of encouraging people to come from the ranks of the long-term unemployed into the workforce. Many people availed of it, particularly lone parents.

However, it transpires that there is an interpretation of the provision whereby anybody who was on a scheme at the time of its introduction, when the social employment schemes only extended for two years, should not now be considered for medical cards for the third year because they were contracted into a two year scheme. This is a mean and petty interpretation of the budgetary provision. It was meant to extend the community employment schemes to three years and that the benefits would extend to cover its duration. I do not know who is responsible for this bureaucratic interpretation which will bring about minimal savings.

The promotional material put abroad by FÁS is contrary to the Department's interpretation. People on schemes have been told by the supervisors that for the three years of the scheme they are entitled to the medical card. The Department's interpretation means that people who might be anxious to take the third year will have to forego it because of the importance of the medical card to families with young children. This interpretation is counterproductive and I cannot understand why the Department has gone back on what appeared at the time to be a straightforward commitment.

With regard to the other secondary benefits, including supplementary welfare allowance, rent allowance, back to school clothing allowance, footwear and fuel allowances, they apply for the duration of the scheme regardless of whether it is for one, two or three years. However, because they are means tested they effectively rule out any head of a household involved in a community employment scheme. Effectively, the medical card and the other secondary benefits are lost and this discourages people from continuing on the schemes.

The Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs has indicated that it has established an independent review body to look into the effects of secondary benefits on the labour market and people coming on to it. The operation of the scheme at present is a disincentive to people coming from the live register on to the labour market. It is a petty interpretation of the rules which will save very little money because it only covers about a year. There are large numbers of long-term unemployed and it has proved one of the most stubborn categories to tackle. Even with a booming economy the numbers of long-term unemployed are being reduced at a dismally slow rate.

The matter should be clarified with a positive interpretation as intended in January 1996 when the budgetary provision extended the secondary benefits, particularly the medical card, to the participants of community employment schemes and that all participants on the live register for 12 months could have benefits for three years so that they might get established in employment and develop a future for themselves and their families.

Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children (Dr. Moffatt)

I am advised by my colleague, the Minister for Social, Family and Community Affairs, that secondary benefits operated by his Department such as supplementary welfare allowance, rent supplements and back to school clothing and footwear allowance continue to be payable to people on community employment schemes regardless of the duration of the scheme provided the income of the person is no more than £250 per week. However, a maximum of £250 per month is payable in either rent supplement or mortgage interest supplement in such cases.

I understand that one of the main points at issue is the retention of the medical card by people on community employment schemes. The medical card is not a secondary benefit as the phrase is understood in social welfare terms. The medical card scheme derives from a distinct legal framework. Its administration is carried out separately from the social welfare system and its sole criteria for eligibility is one of hardship.

The 1996 budget made provision whereby persons who had been unemployed for at least one year could retain their medical cards for a period of three years after entering employment. The budget provision covers medical card holders who have been unemployed for at least one year, i.e., persons on the live register who take up paid insurable employment. These persons are deemed to meet the criteria for retaining their medical card for a period of three years. The measure is effective from the date of the 1996 budget, namely, 23 January 1996. The provision also covers participants on approved schemes applicable to the long term unemployed including community employment.

Arrangements which were in place prior to 23 January 1996 provided for persons who held medical cards while on the live register to retain the medical card for a period of two years after securing a placement on any of the schemes applicable to the long-term unemployed. Since these persons were already on schemes prior to the budget of January 1996, they are not covered by the budget provisions allowing for the retention of a medical card for three years. However, after the expiry of the two year period of their entitlement such persons have their community employment income disregarded when their eligibility for a medical card is being assessed.

The Department of Health and Children and the health board chief executive officers who have statutory responsibility for administration of the medical card scheme have shown considerable flexibility in the implementation of the 1996 budget provision relating to the long-term unemployed. Shortly after the provision was announced, they agreed at the request of FÁS, to extend the entitlement to participants in the three new schemes, namely, Jobstart, Workplace and Job Initiative, for some of which the qualifying period of unemployment was less than 12 months. In addition, the chief executive officers are implementing the provision in the 1997 budget which permits people who take up temporary employment to have the option of having their income assessed on an annual basis, that is, based on 52 times the weekly income guideline for entitlement to a medical card.

Aside from these provisions which relate to the unemployed, the chief executive officers annually revise, in line with changes in the consumer price index, the income guidelines which are applied in the assessment of applicants for medical cards in general. These guidelines have no statutory effect — they are only guidelines — and a medical card may be awarded to a person whose income exceeds the relevant guidelines, if in the opinion of the chief executive officer, undue hardship would otherwise result. Similarly, a medical card may be awarded to an individual in a family even when the family itself would not qualify for the card.

In addition, the following income sources are not taken into account in assessing the applicant's income: back to work allowance, blind welfare allowance, carer's allowance, child benefit, Department of Defence service pensions 1916-21, domiciliary care allowance, family income supplement, foster care allowance, mobility allowance, supplementary welfare allowance and weekly payments under the community employment scheme programme.

The Government programme has set as a priority a review of the eligibility of medical cards for the elderly and large families. The Department of Health and Children is currently progressing this matter with health board chief executive officers.

I am advised that the Department of Social, Family and Community Affairs has commissioned an independent review of secondary and other benefits such as the medical card in relation to their effect on labour market participation. This review will examine, inter alia, any anomalies in the operation of the provisions relating to retention of medical cards by persons participating in community employment schemes.

The Seanad adjourned at 8.25 p.m. until 2.30