Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 118: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if a person (details supplied) in County Mayo will be approved and awarded the rent supplement following their appeal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28474/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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Rent supplements are available to eligible people through the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive. Neither I nor my Department has any function in determining entitlement in individual cases.

People in full-time education are not eligible normally to receive assistance, including rent supplements, under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. However, there is a special provision for retention of existing rent supplement entitlements by recipients of one-parent family payment or other qualifying social welfare scheme in the specific situation where they resume full-time education after a defined period, provided they do so with the assistance of the back to education allowance scheme.

The Dublin-mid-Leinster area of the executive has advised that it rejected a claim for rent supplement from the person concerned, on the basis that she is a full-time student and that she did not satisfy the eligibility criteria for participation in the back-to-education allowance scheme. The person concerned has appealed this rent supplement claim decision to the executive's appeals office. An appeals officer will make a determination on her eligibility as soon as possible and notify her of the outcome.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 119: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason applicants for the deserted wife's benefit who submitted their applications after August 1992 are treated in a different manner to those who applied before that date; and his views on whether this is unfair discrimination. [28528/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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Deserted wife's benefit is a payment made to a woman deserted by her husband. Entitlement to payment is based on social insurance contributions paid by the wife or her husband.

An earnings limit was introduced for deserted wife's benefit in 1992. The limit, which applied only to new claims after August 1992, is currently €2,697.38 a year, gross earnings. Where earnings are in excess of €12,697.38 a year, there may be entitlement to a reduced rate of payment of deserted wife's benefit, provided gross earnings do not exceed €17,776.33 a year. Following the introduction of the one parent family payment in 1997, the deserted wives benefit scheme was discontinued for new claims with effect from 2 January in that year.

The schemes for deserted wives under social insurance have been retained to the extent that existing entitlements already acquired in August 1992, when the earnings limit was introduced for new claimants, and in 1997, when the one parent family payment scheme was introduced have been preserved.