The social welfare legislation underpinning means testing for the jobseeker’s allowance (JA) scheme, including the means of couples, is set out in Part 2 of the Third Schedule of the Social Welfare Consolidated Act 2005(as amended), with the corresponding regulations set out in Chapter 6 of S.I. 142 of 2007, Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) Regulations 2007 (as amended). These can be found on the Irish Statute Book website:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2005/act/26/enacted/en/index.html and http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2007/si/142/made/en/pdf
.
The Department’s means assessment guidelines are available on the Departmental website, at the following link:
http://www.welfare.ie/en/pages/means-assessment.aspx. The JA scheme’s operational guidelines are also available on the Department website at: http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Jobseekers-Allowance.aspx
There are two additional rules which relate specifically to cases where a jobseeker’s allowance claimant’s spouse is living outside of the State. As set out in Section 249 (6A) of the 2005 Act (as amended by
Section 8 (2) (b) of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2014), it is not possible for a JA claimant to be paid an increase for a qualified adult in respect of a spouse living abroad. This provision can be found at the following link:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2014/act/16/section/8/enacted/en/html#sec8.
The Department’s internal circular 42/14 addresses this legislative provision, and has been sent to the Deputy.
Related to this, Section 141 (2) (d) of the Consolidation Act (as amended by the Section 9 (a) of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2007 ) provides that where the spouse is not a qualified adult, the means of the claimant are taken to be one-half the means of the couple.
Where a JA claimant’s spouse is living outside of the State, a further difference in the means assessment may apply. In social assistance schemes generally, where a claimant and/or his/her spouse/partner owns a property other than the family home, the second property is assessed on a capital basis. However, if the spouse lives in the second property, it would not be assessed on a capital basis for social welfare means purposes.
Regardless of where a spouse lives, there are disregards in relation to their earnings. The first €60 of weekly earnings are disregarded, with the remainder assessed at 60%.
It should be noted that there is currently no provision, in social welfare means test arrangements, for any outgoings such as rent, mortgage payments or any upkeep costs to be disregarded in relation to a person’s family home. Accordingly, there are no additional disregards where a couple are living in two homes, either in Ireland or abroad. Any changes to the jobseeker’s allowance means assessment would have to be considered in the overall policy and budgetary context.
