Gerry Reynolds
Ceist:309 Mr. G. Reynolds asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the plans he has to introduce access to the live register for women currently excluded. [15866/01]
Written Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.
The live register is published each month by the Central Statistics Office. It is an administrative count of persons in receipt of or claiming unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance or credited contributions in respect of unemployment.
To gain access to the live register a person must be unemployed and satisfy the conditions for receipt of benefit or of credits. Women have equality of access with men to unemployment payments and credited contributions and are included on the live register if they are unemployed and satisfy the conditions. At the end of April 2001, there were 135,561 persons on the live register of whom 56,417 – or 41% – were women.
The live register is used as a gateway to many educational, training and employment programmes administered by my Department and other agencies such as FÁS. There is done to target access to these programmes to the most disadvantaged as some of the programmes have limitations on the number of places available. This requirement has however proved to be a barrier to a significant number of women who are not on the live register and who should be equally targeted for access to such programmes. The question of widening access to employment, training and educational programmes to persons not on the live register was examined by a working group on women's access to labour market opportunities which reported in 2000. Implementations of the recommendations in that report is being processed by the Departments concerned.
Bernard J. Durkan
Ceist:310 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the reason a person (details supplied) in County Kildare has not received any mortgage assistance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15879/01]
The supplementary welfare allowance scheme is administered on behalf of my Department by the health boards and neither I nor my Department has any function in deciding entitlement in individual cases. Under the terms of the SWA scheme payment of a weekly or monthly supplement may be made in respect of rent or mortgage interest to any person in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs.
The purpose of the mortgage interest supplement scheme is to assist eligible persons who are unable to meet their mortgage repayments in respect of a house which is their sole place of residence.
Entitlement to a mortgage interest supplement is determined by the health boards and supplements are normally calculated to ensure that the person has an income equal to the rate of SWA appropriate to the family circumstances, less £6. This £6 represents the minimum contribution which applicants are required to pay from their resources. Most recipients pay more than £6 towards their mortgage because applicants are required to contribute any additional assessable means that they have over and above the appropriate basic SWA rate towards their mortgage repayments.
The scheme operates on the basis that the person shall be entitled to a supplement towards the interest portion of the mortgage repayments only. The principal is not, and never was, taken into account in the calculation of the mortgage interest supplement because it is not considered appropriate that the Exchequer should repay part of the initial loan and thereby provide assistance towards the accumulation of a capital asset on the part of the individual concerned.
The South-Western Area Health Board has been contacted on behalf of the person concerned and has advised that she was given an application form to complete in respect of a claim for mortgage interest supplement. To date she has not returned the completed application form to the local community welfare officer and accordingly her claim cannot be processed. On receipt of the completed form the CWO will be in a position to make a decision on the person's entitlement to the mortgage interest supplement.