Bríd Smith
Ceist:1568. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Social Protection the amount it would cost to disregard the maintenance payments when assessing social welfare payment. [36406/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 26 July 2017
Ceisteanna (1568)
Freagraí scríofa
Where a social welfare claimant is in receipt of maintenance payments from a spouse/partner, housing costs incurred by the social welfare claimant (e.g. rent or mortgage payments and/or home improvement loan) up to a maximum of €95.23 per week may be offset against the maintenance payment, with half the balance of the maintenance being assessed as means. These arrangements ensure that there is always an incentive to receive a maintenance payment. The cost of disregarding all maintenance received by a welfare claimant across all relevant schemes is not readily available.
Where a social welfare claimant is paying maintenance to another person, the means assessment of this maintenance paid varies by the type of social welfare scheme.
Social welfare legislation specifically provides that maintenance payments paid under a separation order by recipients of certain social welfare schemes are to be deducted from any assessment of their income. This provision applies to the state pension non-contributory, widow/er’s and surviving civil partner’s non-contributory pension, carer’s allowance, one-parent family payment, and the blind pension.
In the case of claimants of other schemes, however, such as jobseeker’s allowance, disability allowance and supplementary welfare allowance, their means for social welfare purposes are their means before they meet any obligations they may have to pay maintenance i.e. no account is taken of such payments in assessing the means of the maintenance payer.
It is not possible to provide the cost of excluding maintenance payments made by social welfare claimants, as the relevant data are not available. Any change to the current arrangements would have to be considered in the overall policy and budgetary context.