Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 77: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if he has examined the possibility of paying child benefit on a weekly basis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43263/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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Child benefit is the principal means of providing support to families with children in Ireland. It is neutral vis-À-vis the employment status of the child's parents and maximises choice for parents. Child benefit is paid monthly in advance to over 561,000 families is respect of over 1,080,000 children. At present there are no plans to move child benefit to a weekly payment. It should be noted that CB is paid in advance and if payments were made on a weekly basis the recipient would receive most payments at a later date than is now the case. A move to weekly payments would also have significant administrative implications, including additional costs.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 79: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs his views on the claim made by OPEN that children in the poorest one-parent families will gain just €6.00 per week from the Budget 2007 changes. [43247/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The financial support for the poorest lone parent families with, say, one child will increase by over €26 per week or 11.8% in 2007. This includes an increase of €20 per week in the basic rate of payment, plus increases in Child Benefit as well as improvements in the rates of qualified child allowance and the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance. As I have said many times, the best route out of poverty is through employment and on foot of this year's Government discussion paper on lone parents, work is now progressing on a number of initiatives aimed at improving the employment opportunities of lone parents and parents on low income.

A sub-group of the Senior Officials Group on Social Inclusion is currently working on a plan to implement proposals for the expanded availability and range of education and training opportunities for lone parents; the extension of the National Employment Action Plan to focus on lone parents; focused provision of childcare and improved information services for lone parents. In addition, my Department is currently preparing proposals for Government for the introduction of a new social assistance payment for low income families including lone parents with young children. This new payment will have the long term aim of assisting people to achieve financial independence through supporting them to enter employment.

Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 80: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if he has considered applying a similar income disregard for non-contributory State pensioners to income from self-employment, in particular from farming; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43261/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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Last September, I established a new pension scheme, the State Pension Non-Contributory, for persons aged 66 and over. As part of this reform, I increased the basic income disregard for the purposes of the means test for non-contributory pensions to €20 per week. At the same time, I introduced incentives for those pensioners who may wish to continue in employment, or return to employment, by introducing a new disregard on earnings of €100 per week.

In Budget 2007, I was happy to be able to: deliver a pension of €200 per week as promised in the Government commitment; build on the reforms I introduced last year by increasing the basic means disregard to €30 per week; and increase the earnings disregard to €200 per week. These measures will benefit approximately 26,000 pensioners, including many farmers, from January 5 next. As a consequence, in addition to the €18 increase in non-contributory personal rate a further increase of up to €10 per week will apply while the Qualified Adult rate will be further increased by up to €6.60 per week. These increases are on top of the €18 per week provided for non-contributory pensioners generally.

It should also be noted that special arrangements also apply for pensioner farmers who participate in the REPS and SACS schemes. The first €2,540 of all income from these schemes is not assessable for means test purposes and 50% of any balance is assessed. Any expenses necessarily incurred to participate in these schemes are also disregarded.

I am satisfied that the measures introduced in Budget 2007 will ensure that the living standards of all non-contributory pensioners, including farmer pensioners, are greatly enhanced and I have no proposals to introduce further changes at this time.