Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

An individual who has capital amounting to €40,000, or €80,000 for a couple, and no other income or means will receive the maximum rate of the State non-contributory pension. I take the Deputy's point. One could have a single person living on nothing who could manage to survive on very little. I would say it could be the clippings of the tin, which would be very little. They manage to accumulate all these savings. They think they will leave their family a pile of money when they pass away, but then they discover they should not have filled that form in 20 years ago and given that information. They discover they have to pay it back. I know of a 96-year-old woman. I said not to annoy her and to let it come out of the estate. I asked that she not be written to and her head annoyed, at 96, saying she owed one-hundred-and-something thousand to social welfare, because she was on a non-contributory pension. I take the Deputy's point. I can tell the Deputy now that it is up to the person. How would social welfare know when their savings had gone over a certain limit? We could not take it upon ourselves, as much and all as we like to help people, to write to them to remind them of these things. The onus is on people. We do a review of non-contributory pensions.

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