Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 March 2019
667. Deputy John Brady asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated full-year cost of extending the cut-off age for the jobseeker's transition payment until the youngest child reaches 18 years of age; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11915/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe cost of increasing the age limit for a qualified child for the jobseeker's transitional payment (JST) to when the youngest child turns 18 years of age is not easily estimated.
There are significant barriers to undertaking such an exercise. For example, customers may no longer be within the welfare system, while others could seek to move from alternative payments such as Jobseekers Allowance (JA), the Working Family Payment (WFP) and the Back to Work Family Dividend (BTWFD) back to JST. It would be difficult for my Department to estimate the magnitude of this flow into and between schemes with any degree of accuracy.
As these unknown factors are critical to providing a reliable costing my Department is not in a position to provide the costing requested.
