Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and congratulate him on his new role. I sat beside Deputy Humphreys on many occasions and engaged in good banter with him on the backbenches. I am delighted to see someone who was up here with me - where the pigeons cannot fly - being elevated to a lower level in the Dáil Chamber. I wish him the best of luck in his new role and hope that he will be able to help me today.

A number of constituents have approached me about this issue and I will relay the story of one such constituent to the Minister of State. This concerns a person who wants to pay the local property tax on a weekly basis. She, like many other citizens, wanted to set up a standing order or have the payment deducted from her social welfare payment. She receives a social welfare payment of €188 per week and her local property tax works out at roughly €4 per week. The Department of Social Protection will not allow her to take the payment out on a weekly basis because her income will then drop below the critical threshold of €186.

This is a person who is budgeting on limited funds. She has been asked why she does not pay it on a weekly basis. If she pays it on a weekly basis in cash through the post office, she will be charged a service provider charge of €1, which is an additional €52 per year.

This is a person who would find it difficult to put money aside, as has been suggested. Come the end of the year, in particular last year when only €2 was taken off her on a weekly basis, she has to come up with an additional amount. She gets an additional living alone allowance of €7, which brings her total payment up to €195. If she is allowed pay the €4 off that, she would be above the threshold of €186.

These are situations where recipients are trying to do their best to live within their means and they do not want to be a burden on the State with regard to the local property tax. It is an anomaly within the system. What we should look at is the total payment being given to this person and other such individuals which would bring them way above the threshold of €186 so that they could have a deduction taken directly out of their social welfare payment. They pay their ESB bill and gas bill by direct debit when they come in where none of this seems to come into effect, but social welfare has dictated the €186 threshold. Claimants receive a living alone allowance which brings them way above it. We should look at the total payment from a social welfare perspective that they receive rather than the individual payment that may put them in the difficulty that they are in at present. The Minister should allow that supplementary payments be taken into consideration when calculating the supplementary welfare allowance which, in this and other cases, would allow them to pay directly their local property tax from their social welfare payment without having to make alternative arrangements.

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