Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 299: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason, for the first time in nine years, the training allowances of young women in the "moving on" programme for young mothers in Carlow are being assessed for rent supplement. [7680/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which includes rent supplement, is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive. The purpose of the scheme is to provide short-term income support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. Neither I nor my Department has any function in decisions on individual claims.

Rent supplements are paid subject to a means test. Rent supplements are ordinarily 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. However, people who take up opportunities, such as a place in the "moving on" programme, are treated more favourably and may retain up to €75 per week of any additional income they receive. A lone parent with one child living in Carlow with a rent of €150 per week, whose sole income is a one-parent family payment of €185.10 per week, would ordinarily receive rent supplement of €134.50 per week, resulting in a net income after paying rent of €169.60 week. If she takes up a place in the "moving on" programme, her total income before rent supplement and before paying rent would rise to €280.10 per week. In these circumstances, she would be entitled to €114.50 in rent supplement and her income after paying rent would total €244.60 per week. She would be €75 better off for having participated in the "moving on" programme.

Until September 2005, the Health Service Executive was not applying the rules of the scheme correctly in some instances and this was the case with previous "moving on" programmes in Carlow. However, participants in the "moving on" programme now have their income assessed correctly under the rules that apply to rent supplement in the same manner as any other participant on a FÁS training course. Improvements in the means assessment from January 2006 now mean that a weekly disregard of up to €60 per week is allowed and half of any additional income between €60 and €90 is also disregarded. This type of additional income disregard was first introduced in the budget in 2000 and has been increased over the years to its current level.