Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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28. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to change the rules in respect of the treatment of savings for those on disability allowance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18539/20]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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We are back to my old hobby horse, that of means testing. There are people who are so disabled from birth or an early age that they will never be able to get employment or make social welfare contributions. The only social welfare payment open to them is the disability allowance. The way that income, capital and savings are assessed against these people is unfair. I would be interested to hear what the Minister intends to do to reform this system.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The system of social assistance supports provides payments based on an income need. The means test plays a critical role in determining whether an income need arises as a consequence of a particular contingency such as disability, unemployment or caring. This ensures that the recipient has a verifiable income need and that resources are targeted at those who need them most. The means test takes account of the income that a person or couple has in terms of cash, property other than the family home, and capital.

Disability allowance is unique in the social welfare system, as the first €50,000 of capital - savings, shares or property - is fully disregarded in the capital means test. This compares with €20,000 for most other social assistance schemes. After the first €50,000 of capital is disregarded, the next €10,000 is assessed at €1 per thousand, the next €10,000 is assessed at €2 per thousand and the remainder is assessed at €4 per thousand. The disregard results in approximately 98% of people on disability allowance with capital means having no capital actually assessed as means.

People receiving disability allowance may also be eligible for secondary benefits such as free travel, fuel allowance, the household benefits package, the living alone allowance and the telephone support allowance. In addition, disability allowance recipients may also work and earn up to €120 per week without their payments being affected.

In addition, disability allowance recipients may also work and earn up to €210 per week without their payment being affected. Any proposals to change the capital means assessment for disability allowance would have to be considered in the overall budgetary context.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Let us go back to the cohort I spoke about, who are so disabled that this talk of getting employment just does not arise. I have come across cases where a parent dies and leaves, say, €100,000 to an adult child who has been disabled since birth. In that case the disability allowance payment dropped from €203 to €53 per week. If the parents leave €110,000 it reduces the payment to €13 a week. If parents die and a family home is sold, if they left €120,000, then the person with a disability would be entitled to no disability allowance. We have to remember that these thresholds are way beneath the inheritance tax threshold. For this very vulnerable group where parents make a huge effort to leave them something, is the Minister willing to look at it again? I am talking about people who have always been disabled and will never have an opportunity to make a social contribution in terms of getting an invalidity pension.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I hear what the Deputy is saying. There are disregards there, as I have pointed out. The first €50,000 of the €100,000 is disregarded and the next amount is done on a sliding scale. The disability allowance covers a wide range of recipients. I will have to speak to my officials about this. I take the point the Deputy is making. The matter would need a fairly in-depth analysis as to what we can do in this space.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I will give the Minister another example, a real-life case. A parent scrimped and saved throughout their life and wanted to make an extra provision for their disabled offspring. They bought a pension of €100 a week and gave it to the adult offspring. In this case, it reduced the disability allowance by €100 per week which meant the parent would end up saving the State money but doing nothing for their own child. When I and the Minister meet, maybe we could also discuss these cases. They are not hypothetical but real cases of families where there might have been a middle-class income and they really wanted to provide for their disabled children but they find all the time that the more they do, the more is taken away by the State.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I am happy to talk to the Deputy about this issue. I take the point. There are always going to be cases and it is important that we look at the system to make sure we are not leaving anybody out or causing difficulties for people.

Would the Acting Chairman mind if I made a short statement to the House on the pandemic unemployment payment, with the permission of Deputy Carroll MacNeill?

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Okay.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Acting Chairman. The pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, was introduced to support people who lost their jobs overnight as a result of Covid-19. It was a solidarity payment to protect people's income at a time of national crisis. I strongly believe that any person who breached that solidarity by claiming a payment they were not entitled to because they were no longer living in the country should have their payment stopped. Of the 2,500 PUP claims that have been stopped since March, the vast majority of these, over 90%, relate to people who were permanently leaving the country.

I have listened to the concerns expressed in recent days relating to people whose payment was stopped due to the fact they were travelling abroad on a holiday. I know that there are cases where people may have travelled abroad and genuinely not been aware of the travel guidance or criteria which applied to the PUP. Indeed, the Acting Chairman, Deputy Lahart, raised that himself yesterday. I accept that my Department could have communicated more effectively on this issue. For that reason, I have directed my Department to review all cases to date where people went on holiday and had their payment stopped.

Since the regulations relating to jobseekers were signed on 10 July, the Government’s travel advice has changed with the publication of the green list last week. On that basis and in line with the Government’s travel advice, I have now asked my officials to amend the regulations so that people on jobseeker's payments who wish to travel to any of the countries on the green list can do so and continue to receive their payment. For countries that are not on the green list, persons can travel for essential reasons only. For example, if someone is going to a non-green list country, it must be for essential reasons such as a bereavement or health reasons. If such people inform their Intreo office in advance, their payment will not be impacted.

The pandemic unemployment payment was established on an emergency ad hocbasis under the Social Welfare Act and was paid out as an exceptional needs payment. My officials advise me that under this scheme, there was no provision to receive a payment while out of the country under any circumstances. As I am currently bringing legislation through the Oireachtas to put the PUP on a statutory basis, I intend to sign regulations that will bring the PUP payment in line with jobseeker's payments. That will mean persons on PUP can travel to green list countries and their payment will not be impacted. As with jobseeker's payments, persons travelling to countries outside the green list can only do so for essential reasons.

The Government is committed to protecting people and that is why we have extended the PUP until next April. We will continue to keep all regulations under review in line with the Government’s travel and public health advice.