Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Question 546: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if he will increase the income limit for persons on community employment schemes to ensure that participants continue to qualify for rent allowances. [1317/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The income limit for rent supplement to which the Deputy refers applies to people in full-time employment. Supplementary welfare allowance is not normally payable to people who are engaged in full-time employment. However, arrangements have been in place for a number of years which allow people to retain a portion of their rent supplement where they take up employment through approved schemes, such as community employment, subject to a weekly household income limit of €317.43. People on community employment may also avail of these arrangements if that gives a more favourable outcome than assessment under the standard rules of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.

While the €317.43 income limit applicable in these cases has not been increased recently, other improvements have been made. The period for which rent supplement may be retained after commencement of employment has been extended to four years on a tapered basis, such as 75% in the first year, 50% in the second year and 25% in the third and fourth years. In addition, the upper limit of €317.43 per month on the amount of supplement payable was abolished for people on approved employment schemes, including community employment.

Back to work allowance and family income supplement, in cases where one or both are in payment to an applicant for rent supplement, are now disregarded in the assessment of the €317.43 weekly income limit. PRSI and reasonable travelling expenses are also disregarded in the means test. People who take up a community employment place are not automatically disqualified from receiving rent supplement if the household income exceeds the €317.43 limit. Any participant in community employment has the option of being be assessed under either standard rules or under retention rules and will be entitled to receive payment under the more favourable option.

Under standard assessment rules, rent supplements are calculated to ensure that an eligible person, after the payment of rent, has an income equal to the rate of supplementary welfare allowance appropriate to his or her family circumstances, less a minimum contribution of €13 which each recipient is required to pay from his or her own resources. Up to €50 — increasing to €60 from the end of January 2005 — in respect of additional income from part-time employment is disregarded in the means test, thus ensuring that a person is better off as a result of taking up such an opportunity. Community employment is regarded as part-time employment for such purposes.

The current eligibility thresholds and disregards, together with improvements in the standard rules of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, ensure that people have a financial incentive to take up employment opportunities. The effectiveness of the arrangements will be considered further in the context of a review of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme which the Department of Social and Family Affairs will undertake in 2005.