Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The amendment was ruled out of order but I will speak on the section. The proposal is that income from the rent a room scheme could be seen as an income disregard for the one-parent family payment. The Minister and I have been back and forth on this already. It fits with the rent a room scheme, for which there is a heavy tax incentive. It fits with the crisis in student accommodation throughout the country and low-income households using the one asset they have to get a bit of additional income. As things stand with any money that gets brought in from a household, almost exactly the same amount of money gets taken away from welfare payments, so there is no incentive whatsoever to do it. I wanted to raise this in order that I can discuss it on Report Stage and I thank the Chairman.