Claire Kerrane
Question:584. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons in receipt of the working family payment who had their payment revoked since Covid-19 hit in March 2020. [1552/21]
View answerWednesday, 13 January 2021
Questions (584)
Written answers
Working Family Payment (WFP) is an in-work supplementary, family benefit which provides additional income support to employees with children and on low earnings. Once awarded, WFP is payable for 52 weeks from the date of award at a fixed weekly rate. At the end of the 52 week award period, a person must submit a new application for reassessment. In order to satisfy the qualifying and continued entitlement condition for receipt of WFP, a claimant must be engaged in fulltime remunerative employment as an employee for not less than 38 hours per fortnight.
In cases where existing WFP claimants lose their employment on a temporary basis or their hours of employment temporarily reduce below the required limit for receipt of WFP due to the impact of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, their existing WFP payment has continued in payment. Where a claimant qualifies for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, payment of WFP is not affected once the person meets the eligibility conditions of both payments.
My officials have analysed the instances of disallowances both pre and post Covid-19 and there has been no increase in the number of WFP applications being disallowed since the onset of the pandemic. As would be expected, the downturn in economic activity caused by the Covid pandemic has resulted in a significant reduction in new WFP applications received since March 2020.
I hope this clarifies the position for the Deputy.