Mr. Toby Wolfe:

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan asked a question on family income supplement not being excluded from income sources. I will make two points on that issue. This refers to included income on equity grounds. The starting point for the income assessment is that all forms of income are assessed. We have excluded certain specific payments, primarily payments intended to support labour market access through education and training or time-bound short-term measures that support families into the labour market. Family income support tends to be given in the form of a long-term payment, rather than as short-term assistance into the labour market.

A second important point is that the scheme also provides for what is known as a multiple child deduction. This is a deduction from a family's income where there are two or more children. The rationale for the deduction is very much around family income supplement because the amount of supplement paid to a family increases significantly when they have two, three or more children, in other words, the larger the family, the larger the FIS payment. The multiple child deduction built into the affordable child care scheme has been set specifically at a level to offset the increase in payment of family income supplement the more children a family have. The FIS payment, to a considerable extent, leads to an adjustment in a family's income through that mechanism.