I refer the Deputy to my previous replies to Questions No. 28 on 15 October 1997, No. 31 on 26 November 1997 and No. 58 on 4 February, 1998. Unemployment assistance is a means-tested payment paid to unemployed people between the ages of 18 and 66 not entitled to insurance-based unemployment benefit. Payments are means-tested to ensure the limited resources available are directed at those most in need. In assessing a person's means for unemployment assistance purposes, account is taken of any cash income the person may have together with the value of any capital or property. In addition, the value of any benefit or privilege enjoyed by an applicant, such as that of board and lodging in the family home, is assessed.
Under current arrangements, any claimant, irrespective of age, whose sole means are derived from the assessment of board and lodging in the parental home and who is entitled to less than £25 per week, has their payment increased to £25. This means, for instance, that where the combined net parental income does not exceed £19,698 per annum, a claimant is entitled to at least the minimum £25 weekly payment of unemployment assistance.
One of the principal arguments for the abolition or relaxation of the benefit and privilege rule for young unemployed people is that the operation of this rule encourages them to leave the family home to qualify for higher unemployment assistance payments and rent supplements. However, as I have pointed out in previous replies on this topic, the limited evidence which is available does not suggest this is happening to any significant degree. In particular, a report published by the Economic and Social Research Institute in 1993: Pathways to Adulthood in Ireland: Causes and Consequences of Success and Failure in Transitions Amongst Irish Youth, while not directly addressing this issue, presented evidence which did not lend great support to the argument outlined above.
The report looked at the rate over time at which young people moved out of the family home. It found that leaving home is a highly complex process with many different facets, including the pattern of full-time education participation and the nature of employment sought. Most interestingly, in this context, the research found that unemployed people were the slowest group to move out of the family home. While these results must be interpreted in the light of the complex factors which prevail in the decision to move out, they do not lend support to a view that unemployed young people are more likely to leave the family home because of the qualification conditions for unemployment assistance.
More recently, in its report in 1995, the review group on the role of supplementary welfare allowance in relation to housing considered the issue of how the benefit and privilege provision might be contributing towards young people leaving the family home and claiming rent supplement. While the group found that the possible effect of the benefit and privilege rule was one of a range of factors which may have contributed to the growth in rent and mortgage supplementation since 1989, they were not able to establish the relative importance of any individual factor. However, the group concluded that key factors in the growth of numbers of people claiming rent and mortgage supplements, included the increased availability of information relating to welfare entitlements and increased public expectations regarding welfare support levels.
While the available evidence does not support the notion that the benefit and privilege rule is a highly significant factor in the movement of young people out of the family home, my Department will, nevertheless, continue to evaluate this provision in the light of any new evidence which becomes available.
