Vol. 454 No. 3
79 Mr. J. Walsh asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will extend the lone parent's allowance to persons who opt to live at home with their parents without loss of allowances, such as free television licence and free electricity; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10477/95]
The free television licence scheme and the free electricity allowance scheme are two of the free schemes administered by my Department which also include the free natural gas allowance and the free telephone rental allowance. The purpose of these schemes is to encourage elderly or disabled people living alone on limited means to continue to live in their own homes instead of going into residential care.
In order to qualify for the free schemes, the applicant must be in receipt of a social welfare type payment as an elderly or disabled person. A recipient of a lone parent's allowance would have to be aged 66 years or over to be eligible. Applicants must also satisfy the living alone conditions of these schemes which means the applicant must either be living alone or only with certain excepted persons such as dependants or people with a personal entitlement to the free schemes.
I understand the Deputy has in mind a situation in which a lone parent goes to live with his or her parents. If, previous to the move, both households had entitlements to a free television licence and to a free electricity allowance, one set of the allowances would cease because only one allowance is payable per household and the payment is made only to the person responsible for the licensing of the television set and for payment of the electricity accounts. The usual situation, however, is that only the parents have qualified for the allowances and the arrival of the lone parent in their household is a breach of the living alone conditions and the parents, therefore, lose their entitlements.
