Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 468: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if the community welfare officers will be instructed to give people on low incomes financial assistance towards the purchase of water when their domestic water supplies are contaminated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10642/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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Water supply is a matter for my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Under his department's rural water programme, grants are available through the county councils for the upgrading and improvement of a quality deficient private group water scheme supply or the improvement of a private individual supply in cases where an alternative public or group scheme supply is not readily available.

Under the terms of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive, an exceptional needs payment may be made to help meet an essential, once-off cost which the applicant is unable to meet out of his or her own resources. There is no automatic entitlement to this payment. Each application is determined by the executive based on the particular circumstances of the case. Exceptional needs payments are subject to a means test. Eligible people would normally be in receipt of a social welfare or Health Service Executive payment.

A person whose water supply is contaminated should contact his or her local authority in the first instance with a view to having the cause of the problem addressed. If a person has an exceptional income need due to the contamination of his or her domestic water supply, he or she should contact his or her local community welfare office if he or she wishes to apply for assistance under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme