Family income supplement is designed to assist people in low income employment with qualified child dependants where they might otherwise be only marginally better off than if they were fully dependent on a welfare payment.
The part-time job incentive, PTJI, scheme applies where a recipient of long-term unemployment assistance takes up insurable employment for up to 24 hours per week. A weekly allowance is paid, which does not include an increase for child dependants. Participants in this scheme are obliged to continue to make efforts to find full-time work. To qualify for FIS, PTJI recipients must work in insurable employment for a minimum of 38 hours per fortnight. The part-time job allowance is counted as income for FIS purposes.
Participants on CE, which was previously called the social employment scheme, SES, have never been eligible for FIS payments. CE is a publicly funded employment and training programme with the specific objective of progressing the long-term unemployed and other disadvantaged people from social welfare dependency towards employment in the open labour market. CE allowance includes an increase for qualified adult and child dependants, where applicable.
As a State-funded employment and training programme rather than full-time remunerative employment, CE earnings are specifically excluded by regulation for the purpose of FIS qualification. There are no plans to amend these regulations.