Ms Yvonne O'Sullivan:

On the question of what we would consider as a minimum income standard, as an organisation we do not have a specific figure in that regard. There is currently no consistency within Departments. Mention was made earlier of the guidelines introduced under the Personal Insolvency Act which will be used by the insolvency service. The Department of Social Protection minimum income payment is the supplementary welfare allowance of €186. This amount varies depending on the person's entitlement. This allowance is seen by the Department of Social Protection as basic minimum income.

On overpayments and how the Department recovers them from individuals on such basic payments, we would argue that the amendment to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 which provides the Department with powers to recover up to 15% of overpayments with or without the consent of the individual leads to people facing destitution. We are not saying that an overpayment should not be repaid. Some overpayments are the result of fraud. Others are the result of errors by civil servants and deciding officers and lead to hardship for individuals. We believe the Department of Social Protection should use valuable research such as that of the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice on minimum income standards and the cost of food, rent, education and so on when looking at how current payments compare in the context of inflation and standard of living costs. The Department needs to set guidelines in this area. There are already many useful tools and resources available to inform it in this regard.