The possibility of introducing a special island allowance for social welfare claimants whose permanent place of residence is on an offshore island has been raised with me on a number of occasions and in particular by my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Ó Cuív.
The implications of introducing such a measure would need to be examined carefully, and this will be explored by my Department in the coming months. There are a number of potential difficulties with such a scheme, including: the appropriateness of having different rates of welfare payments depending on the claimant's place of permanent residence; having regard to requirement to treat all welfare claimants in an equitable manner, while it can be argued that islanders live in particularly isolated circumstances, with associated costs in terms of travel, access to goods at cheaper prices and so on, the same is true of other parts of rural Ireland; the potential employment disincentive impact of such an allowance; and the costs involved.
In addition, any examination would need to take account of issues such as whether such an allowance would be payable to all welfare claimants or confined to claimants of social welfare pensions, and the manner in which increases in respect of qualified adults and dependent children would be treated.