Vol. 546 No. 3
301 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs his plans to carry out a full review of various social welfare payments with a view to identifying a basic or minimum payment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31924/01]
There already exists a scheme in the State which entitles people to a minimum weekly income. Supplementary welfare allowance, SWA, provides a safety net against poverty in that it gives a statutory entitlement to a minimum weekly income, based on criteria set out in legislation. Apart from a number of excluded categories, anyone in the State whose means are insufficient to meet his or her needs is entitled to assistance under the SWA scheme.
The social welfare benchmarking and indexation group, established under the terms of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, reported in September this year. The terms of reference of the group required it to examine the issues involved in developing a benchmark for adequacy of adult and child social welfare payments, including the implications of adopting a specific approach to the ongoing up-rating or indexation of payments, having regard to their long-term economic, budgetary, PRSI contribution, distributive and incentive implications, in light of trends in economic, demographic and labour market patterns, and examine the issue of relative income poverty.
The report is a comprehensive account of the many complex issues associated with the benchmarking and indexation of welfare payments and represents a valuable input to policy development in this area for the future. Copies of the report have been placed in the Oireachtas Library and it is also available on my Department's website.
The group recognised, as have many reports of this kind in the past, that adequacy is a subjective concept and that it is not possible to arrive at a definition of income adequacy in an objective or scientific way. It concentrated on the lowest rates of payment, that is, supplementary welfare allowance and short-term unemployment assistance, in terms of trying to arrive at a suitable benchmark for adequacy for these payments.
