Social welfare legislation provides for a disregard of maintenance payments in relation to housing costs actually incurred (up to a maximum of €95.23 per week) across a range of means-tested social assistance schemes (such as jobseeker's allowance, one-parent family payment, disability allowance and the state pension non-contributory), with half the balance of the maintenance being assessed as means.
Any change would have implications for other social assistance schemes where similar arrangements apply.
It is not possible at this time to provide a cost for this proposal as collating the relevant data across the various schemes would require significant resources.