Deputy Fennell raised a specific complaint which we will take up with the Eastern Health Board. Deputy Byrne raised the matter of the Department of Social Welfare taking over the administration of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. This has a lot of different implications. As we develop the localisation of services we are in a better position to operate the scheme locally. We have been taking a number of steps to facilitate and regularise payments of supplementary welfare allowance. The Deputy asked about rents and mortgages. We have revised the relevant guidelines and unified them throughout the country. The exceptional needs payments are being considered. It is a more difficult matter to unify these on a nationwide basis but they are being standardised as far as possible.
Deputies Stagg and Byrne would like to see greater increases, as would most people. The increases being given are, however, very substantial. Deputy Stagg mentioned an increase of 4 per cent. In many instances rates of assistance are being increased by far more than 4 per cent. The supplementary welfare allowance, which is a basic fall-back allowance, is being increased by 11 per cent, bringing the personal rate up to £50. I would point out that the adult dependant and child dependant rates of supplementary welfare allowance are at the full rate of £33 for an adult and £12 for a child. The increased supplementary welfare allowance of £50, plus £33 for a dependent spouse, gives £83 for a married couple, an increase of £7. A husband and wife with three children on supplementary welfare allowance receive an extra £10 a week. We are closing the gap in relation to the priority rates recommended by the commission, which in 1991 terms would be £54.60. We are raising the personal rate to £50, but the combined rate is much closer to the priority rate because the adult dependant rates are unified, except for some few which are much higher. The administration of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme will be further considered in the development of the whole system and arrangements for payment.
In the area of assistance, the increases are in most cases above 4 per cent. The increase in short term unemployment assistance, supplementary welfare allowance and carer's allowance is 11 per cent. The increase in long term unemployment assistance, pre-retirement allowance and single woman's allowance is 6 per cent. They went up by 11 per cent in each of the last three years. The lowest rates now are the supplementary welfare allowance and short term unemployment assistance. The allowance for an adult dependant which is payable with unemployment assistance, the pre-retirement allowance and the supplementary welfare allowance is being increased by 6.5 per cent. The increase in respect of a spouse of an old aged pensioner is 5.7 per cent. The child dependant allowance is going up by 9 per cent. The new rates are set out in Schedule B to the Bill. In almost all cases the increases are well above 4 per cent, which is the general rate of increase. That is consistent with applying additional resources to those on the lowest payments.
As a result of those increases, a couple with two children on long term unemployment assistance will get £112 per week, giving them an increase of £7 or 6.7 per cent; a couple with five children on short term unemployment assistance or supplementary welfare allowance will get £143 per week, which will make them £12 a week better off, an increase of 9 per cent. The recipients of the carer's allowance will receive an 11 per cent increase. In the Schedule we see the changes in relation to the payments: almost all the payments are now above £50 and all the long term payments are above £55. The rate for those with an adult dependant are £86.70 and £88 and a person on supplementary welfare allowance with an adult dependant will receive £83. Those in receipt of a lone parent's allowance will receive an additional £14 for each child. A family with three children in receipt of the old age or blind pension will get an extra £36. Those in receipt of unemployment assistance or other allowance will receive £12 per child.
Taken together, considerable increases have been given in each of these areas. The number of beneficiaries of means tested payments is estimated at 349,000, and they will benefit from the increased payments. Their dependants account for a further 329,800 people, giving a total of 679,000 people who will benefit from these measures. With regard to the points made by Deputies Stagg and Byrne that the increases were only 4 per cent, it is very hard to find an example in this section where the increase was only 4 per cent. The increases are mainly above 4 per cent. Therefore their argument does not hold. I want to make that very clear at this stage before they decide to vote against the increases in this section, which by any standard are very good.
Deputy Brennan raised the matter that wives of persons in receipt of the disabled person's maintenance allowance were being directed to sign on. I will follow the matter up.