Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, further to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 55, 88 and 96 of 27 October 2005, regarding the number of families who would be eligible but do not apply for their entitlements under the family income supplement scheme, when he expects the ESRI to complete its research. [37279/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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Family income supplement is a payment made to low-income families with children who are in employment. Family income supplement was introduced in 1984 to provide income support for employees with families who are on low earnings, preserving the incentive to remain in employment in circumstances where they might only be marginally better off than if they were fully reliant on social welfare payments.

Weekly payments of FIS are made to families, including one-parent families, with children, that is, under 18, or between 18 and 22 if in full-time education, where one or more parent is in full-time remunerative employment of not less than 19 hours per week, or 38 hours per fortnight, where the employment is likely to last at least three months, and where the income of the family is less than the prescribed weekly amount.

The Government has increased the weekly income thresholds for qualification for a family income supplement payment by €84.00 since 2002. That has resulted in a net increase in FIS available to low-income families of €50.40 per week. Also, the minimum weekly payment was increased from €13 to €20 from January 2004.

On the question of measuring take-up of family income supplement, research undertaken by the Economic and Social Research Institute in 1997, which was based on the results of the Living in Ireland Survey 1994, suggested that fewer than one in three potentially eligible claimants was actually in receipt of the payment. Since those with a higher entitlement are more likely to avail of the scheme, the take-up in expenditure terms was estimated to be somewhat higher, at between 35% and 38% of potential expenditure. We understand that research undertaken more recently by the ESRI will be made publicly available in the first quarter of 2006.