Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 226: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the position relating to a lone parent (details supplied); if such a person is entitled to extra assistance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29594/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive, provides for the payment of a rent supplement to assist eligible people who are unable to provide for their immediate accommodation needs from their own resources and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. Neither I nor my Department has any function in determining entitlement to a supplement in individual cases.

Social welfare programmes aim to be responsive to the needs of those who depend on income maintenance support while providing incentives to assist people to become more independent financially, particularly through employment.

The Dublin/mid-Leinster region of the executive has advised that it determined recently, in accordance with the rules of the scheme, that the rent supplement payable to the person concerned should be reduced as a result of an increase in her household income from employment. It has notified her of this revised supplement rate, which is due to go into effect shortly. My Department will also have to review the rate of one-parent family payment, OFP, payable to the person concerned in the light of her new employment situation. Any reduction in her OFP entitlements after this review is completed would in turn require some corresponding upward adjustment in her rate of rent supplement. My Department will notify the executive in this regard as soon as her revised OFP entitlements have been determined. If the person concerned has a particular non-recurring cost that she is unable to meet from her own resources, it is open to her to apply at any time to her local community welfare officer for an exceptional needs payment under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.