Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is certainly not a universal payment.

Second, as I said yesterday, and the Minister might elaborate on this, more than half, if not 60%, of bereavement grant payments have gone into estates and been paid to the beneficiaries. Regardless of whether they were left a big house or a number of properties or savings, they also got the bereavement grant. If we want to have a social welfare system where the least well off get it and those who are well off do not get it - that is what we strive for here every day when Members stand up in this Chamber and say that the least well off should be the ones who receive this type of payment - this is the only way we can do it. An exceptional needs payment grant of up to €2,000 is available which is far more substantial than this grant payment of €850.

I have dealt with this issue day in and day out, as I am sure every Senator has, because we all help the bereaved. Most of the people who have suffered a bereavement that I have helped out did not even know of the existence of this grant. As late as last week when I attended the funeral of a colleague of Deputy Ó Domhnaill, the late Denis Foley, and was standing in the queue with people in the church, they asked me what was this bereavement grant that they were all talking about. People did not even know it existed.

I regret that widows and children who need it will lose out on it, but they will get the exceptional needs grant and it is not a once off payment. I know of people who have received a number of payments for exceptional needs to cover the cost of heating and other costs. Perhaps different rules apply in different parts of the country but some people have got exceptional needs payments more than once. I will leave it to the Minister to elaborate on where the money is going.