Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My sense of this is that either this has not fully established itself yet or maybe the change in approach has not factored through on the ground. I received a parliamentary question response saying that the means of the guardian, including any maintenance payment paid to them, in respect of the child are not assessed when establishing entitlement. The problem is not just in terms of means when it comes to this particular payment. This needs to be looked at in terms of operational guidelines and at deciding officer level. It is not just how it interferes with means, contributions from the payment are considered a contradiction to parental abandonment, which is a requirement of the guardianship payment. If it interferes with that then they can be disallowed. A child could receive €50 for their confirmation from a parent who is hardly in the picture at all and that could interfere with the sense of them being considered parentally abandoned. This is a problem that seems to be in terms of the actual operation of it. It is not just the overall means, the whole sum, but how it interferes with parental abandonment. This needs to be taken up in terms of operational guidelines as to how this flows through.

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