Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Snodaigh asked about children and after-school services. We are rolling out the 6,000 after-school places. Some were rolled out on a pilot basis towards the end of April. We hope to have all of them rolled out by the start of the new school year in September. We will be concentrating on and emphasising parents' going back to work, be they lone parents or part of a couple. There is an area-based approach to child poverty modelled on developments that have taken place in areas such as Ballymun and Tallaght. I am anxious to see this initiative rolled out. As the Deputy knows, a jobless household with a number of children could have specific problems and issues such as children not being connected well in school. Families could be in contact with a variety of services. The area-based approach would mean that all service providers in the area would come together so there would not be different social workers knocking on the door about different issues. There would be a holistic approach to the child and family. In other countries, that is the kind of service that provides the best outcomes, and this is what we need. What I propose is an ambition of mine, but we are just at the beginning of the development phase. It has much potential.

With regard to rent allowances, I said the cost was approximately an extra €7 million. This is not in the Estimate. We will have to meet the cost within the context of our overall budget. With regard to the housing assistance payment, which we hope will result in a happy outcome, the Government agreed in principle in March 2012 to transfer responsibility for rent assistance for people with a long-term housing need to housing authorities, using the new housing assistance payment. The rent supplement will be used for its original intention - that is, to serve as a short-term income support once the housing assistance payment becomes fully operational. The piloting of the housing assistance payment is subject to the necessary legislative arrangements. This is being advanced by our colleagues at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, namely, the Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, and the Minister of State Deputy Jan O’Sullivan.

It has been agreed that by the middle of July a memorandum will be presented to the Government by the Department of Social Protection and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government outlining the heads of a Bill to support the housing assistance payment and detailing the economic assessment, including an interim report on the business planning process. This will provide an update on the legal position regarding the principle of deducting rents from social welfare payments by agreement in regard to the rent contribution. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has been very keen to achieve that, for obvious reasons. However, the Deputy knows from his local authority the number of different types of applicant and types of housing. There are 66 separate schemes and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is working on a unified one.

I will forward Deputy Ryan the detailed statistic he requires. With regard to invalidity pension applications, 17,800 have been decided on. Of these, 64% have been refused. In other words, 36% have been accepted. Of the 11,000 refusals, 4,765 have been subject to appeal. Fewer than half of applicants refused actually appealed. Approximately half of those who appealed were rewarded the invalidity pension. Quite a small number were allowed a partial allowance. Approximately 21% appeals were disallowed and 2.6% were withdrawn. In the Longford office, we have achieved a great turnaround in dealing with the applications. The Deputy should remember that the limitation on illness benefit was introduced in 2009. Therefore, there are now a considerable number of people emerging from the illness benefit period and perhaps seeking an invalidity pension or, in some cases, returning to jobseeker's payments. Circumstances differ. With the new IT infrastructure circumstances are improving, but we certainly have more work to do.