Vol. 471 No. 7
332 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Social Welfare if the provision allowing persons to retain their medical card while on the back-to-work allowance scheme will also be made available to persons in receipt of a one parent family payment while also earning less than £6,000 per annum. [21586/96]
The policy issues regarding medical card entitlement are the responsibility of the Minister for Health.
My Department's policy in relation to lone parents and their children is two-fold — first, to provide basic income maintenance to help oneparent families and second, to help lone parents break out of poverty and dependency on social welfare payments by facilitating their taking up employment.
As part of this latter policy aim, the new oneparent family payment, which I am introducing from January next, is designed to make employment a more feasible option for lone parents as it will increase to £6,000 the amount which a lone parent can earn without affecting title to the payment. I am confident that over time it will prove successful in that regard.
333 Mr. O'Leary asked the Minister for Social Welfare the plans, if any, he has to review the assessment on the capital value of a second house owned by an applicant for unemployment assistance, which is currently based at 5 per cent of the first £400 and 10 per cent of the balance, in view of the irrelevance of these interest rates to current day interests; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22293/96]
339 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will give details of the various capital disregards allowed by his Department in respect of means-tested payments, having regard to the fact that there appears to be a £2,000 disregard in respect of the new disability allowance, a £3,000 disregard in respect of the non-contributory old age single claimant pension, a £6,000 disregard in respect of the blind person's pension, a £200 disregard in respect of blind person's pension and carer's allowance and a disregard of nil in relation to unemployment assistance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21932/96]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 333 and 339 together.
Under existing arrangements, different methods of assessment are applied in calculating means derived from investments and property in the various social assistance schemes. For instance, in the case of unemployment assistance, pre-retirement allowance and supplementary welfare allowance, the first £400 is assessed at 5 per cent and capital in excess of this amount is assessed at 10 per cent.
For old age non-contributory, blind person's pension and carer's allowance purposes, an initial disregard of £200 is allowed, the next £375 is assessed at 5 per cent and the balance is assessed at 10 per cent. In the case of widow's and orphan's non-contributory pension, an initial disregard of £200 is allowed and the balance is assessed at 5 per cent.
I have already made known, during the debate on this year's Social Welfare Bill, that I am taking the opportunity of the introduction of the new one-parent family payment and the new disability allowance to commence the process of standardising the provisions for the assessment of capital across all the various social assistance payments. Under the new provisions, the first £2,000 of capital will be disregarded, the next £20,000 will be assessed at 7.5 per cent and capital in excess of £22,000, if any, will be assessed at 15 per cent.
The extension of these provisions to other social assistance payments will be done progressively over a period of time in view of the significant administrative implications involved. There are about 430,000 people in receipt of a social assistance payment at present and the means of all those with capital will have to be reviewed on the introduction of any changes in this area.
The substantial £2,000 initial disregard under the new arrangements will significantly reduce the effective interest rate for most recipients and will mean that claimants are not effectively assessed at 7.5 per cent until their level of capital approaches £25,000. The cost of extending these arrangements to other social assistance payments is in the region of £9.5 million in a full year.
335 Mr. O'Leary asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will introduce a scheme of free travel for carers of invalidity and old age pensioners who require care during the course of their travel by public transport; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21850/96]
The free travel companion pass, which was introduced in 1990, is aimed primarily at incapacitated people who are unable to travel alone and who would otherwise be unable to benefit under the free travel scheme. It is a special version of the standard travel pass and enables a companion to travel free when accompanying the pass-holder.
Entitlement to the free travel companion pass scheme has been progressively extended since 1990 and is currently available to certain old age pensioners and certain invalidity pensioners aged both under and over 66 years of age. Since last year, the companion pass has been provided to all care-recipients whose carer is receiving a carer's allowance from my Department. In this way, the carer is able to travel free when accompanying the person being cared for.
I am satisfied, therefore, that the situation envisaged by the Deputy is met to a large degree by the existing arrangements. The extension of the companion pass scheme to include additional categories not covered at the present time would have cost implications which would have to be examined in a budgetary context and in the light of available resources.
