Dáil debates

Thursday, 11 May 2023

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Social Welfare Eligibility

3:25 pm

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht teacht anseo agus gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. Fuair mé glaoch gutháin uaithi ag rá nach mbeadh sí ar fáil tráthnóna agus thoiligh mé dul ar aghaidh leis seo. Tá áthas orm an deis a fháil an cheist thábhachtach seo a thógáil leis an Aire Stáit. As the Minister of State knows, the Government made a good decision recently to make a payment of €200 to each person in receipt of a long-term primary payment. However a mistake has been made. I will focus on pensioners but it applies to all who receive it. In cases where an adult dependent is on the payment only €200 was paid and not €400. We should outline why this is unfair. Two people have two costs. As the Minister of State is very well aware from his constituency work, if people going on the pension come to him he will assess what is the best option for them. For many women, and more so than for men, because they tend to have traditionally taken more time out for caring, they have gap year contribution records. Man or woman, there are four ways to assess the best option for a recipient of a pension. For couples the best option is that both get a full contributory pension. This is by far the best option. However, if a full contribution pension is not possible, four other options come into play. For the person without the good record the first option is the non-contributory pension. Within the contributory pension are the second and third options. These are the total contributions system and the average system. The fourth option is that of the dependent adult, which is means tested. We would always advise people to take whatever option is better but nobody ever foresaw that there would be discrimination between the choices. In the event of people choosing the dependent adult option, even though they had an underlying right to a pension in their own right, they are discriminated against. I believe this is an oversight.

I would like to point out that the costs are not that great. A total of 2,983 qualify adult dependents are paid on the non-contributory pension. There are 54,510 on the contributory pension. If we multiply this by €200 we get approximately €11 million, which in the greater scheme of what this costs, is very small. A total of 10%, give or take, of contributory pensioners have a qualified adult as do 3% of non-contributory pensioners. I am sure this was a mistake and an oversight. There is no significant cost factor involved. I am sure it would not be a big job to amend the statutory instrument to cover somebody having chosen in good faith the dependent adult option to get €400 like everybody else in a situation where two adults are dependent on a payment from social welfare.

Photo of Peter BurkePeter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for raising this issue. I apologise on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection. The Government is acutely aware of the effect that high energy prices and the cost of living are having on families, businesses and the most vulnerable. In recognition of these pressures, only last September, budget 2023 delivered the largest social protection budget in the history of the State. In addition to the substantial package of supports provided as part of the budget, earlier this year the Government announced a €470 million spring package of measures to help social protection recipients, including families, pensioners, carers and people with disabilities.

The spring cost-of-living bonus is one of the range of measures put in place. It is one lump sum payment of €200 for each eligible person who has an entitlement to a primary payment in their own right. The €200 lump sum payment was paid in the week commencing 24 April to 1.2 million people in receipt of long-term social welfare payments at a cost of approximately €250 million. Those receiving more than one qualifying social welfare payment receives only one €200 lump sum payment. Each eligible primary recipient of a social welfare payment receives €200, regardless of the number of qualified adult or child dependents, if any, or other social welfare payments. Qualified adults do not have an entitlement to cost-of-living bonuses, including the spring bonus, in their own right.

Further measures as part of the latest cost-of-living support package will include a €100 lump sum payment in respect of every child for whom child benefit is paid. An additional €100 payment will also be paid this year in respect of each child for whom the back to school clothing and footwear allowance is paid. There will be an extension of the hot school meals programme to all DEIS primary schools from September, benefiting 64,500 children. Together, these supports will provide more than €470 million in additional supports to households and families in need.

Since March last year, the Government has provided unprecedented supports to protect people and families as the cost of living has increased. These supports have included a mixture of lump sum payments, double payment weeks and weekly rate increases. The €2.2 billion social protection budget 2023 package included eight lump sum payments to a value of more than €1.3 billion. These comprised an autumn double payment, a double payment of child benefit, a €400 lump sum payment of fuel allowance, a €500 lump sum payment to families receiving working family payment, a €500 lump sum payment to people in receipt of disability allowance, blind pension or invalidity pension, a €200 lump sum payment to people in receipt of the living alone allowance, a €500 lump sum payment to carers, a Christmas bonus double payment of weekly social welfare and pension payments.

In addition, from January we have provided a €12 increase in weekly social welfare and pension rates, the largest increase to weekly payments since the mid-2000s. There has also been a significant expansion of the fuel allowance scheme with a particular focus on supporting older people over 70. There are also increased income thresholds for the working family payment so that more families can qualify. These measures are in addition to other measures introduced during 2022 to assist people and families with the cost of living. These include a major expansion of the hot school meals programme to 320 new DEIS schools, a €100 increase in the back to school clothing and footwear allowance, two fuel allowance lump sum payments of €125 in March 2022 and €100 in May 2022, a universal energy credit of €200 introduced in April 2022, followed by three further €200 energy credits, a reduction in student fees, a 25% reduction in childcare costs and a 20% reduction in public transport fees.

With regard to the qualification criteria for the State pension quoted by Deputy Ó Cuív for people on qualifying allowances, who may qualify anyway for part of the main payment, I will raise it with the Minister Deputy Humphreys and come back to him.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I kindly thank the Minister of State. To be quite honest, whoever in the Department wrote the reply must think I know nothing about the social welfare. They have informed me about all the schemes that the Minister of State and I know about, and that every Deputy the House knows about because we deal with them every week. It is a little bit patronising for the Department to dodge the issue. What did it say about the nub of this issue? It made a bald statement that qualified adults do not have an entitlement to cost-of-living bonuses, including the spring bonus, in their own right. "Yes" Minister and "No" Minster. Before Christmas there were double payments and someone with a qualified adult on their payment got paid.

The two points I am making here are about the cost of living. Is the Minister of State telling me that pensioners, invalidity pensioners, any of the people with disabilities and so on with a dependent adult did not face the same cost-of-living increases as everybody else? Of course, they did. Is the Department suggesting that to me? In this case, some of these people might have had and probably had an underlying entitlement to a payment in their own right but they opted for the one because the Department carefully always claims it will give the one that is optimal for the individual. Having opted for the dependent adult, they have found that in this case they lose out. It is very simple.

I will not ask the Minister of State to waste his time going through another supplementary answer with a whole lot of further bumf. I ask him to go back and ask the Minister to review this on two bases: first, because, as I said, people have made choices on the basis of the best option; and second, and more importantly, couples in a household face the same increase in costs irrespective of whether it is primary payment on the dependent adult or two primary payments. The third issue here is that this will cost very little. If the Minister of State just stands up and says he will raise the transcript of this debate with the Minister he can sit down and we can go on to next Topical issue and we will save my good colleagues here a bit of time in the House.

3:35 pm

Photo of Peter BurkePeter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am happy to undertake to do that on behalf of Deputy Ó Cuív.

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State.