Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 229: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if an exceptional needs payment can or will be offered to a person (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7146/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the HSE, an exceptional needs payment (ENP) may be made to help meet an essential, once-off cost which the applicant is unable to meet out of his/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. Eligible people would normally be in receipt of a social welfare or health service executive payment. Non payment of rent is not a case for making an exceptional needs payment.

The Health Service Executive has advised that the person concerned is in receipt of a rent supplement (in addition to a one parent family payment) at the maximum rate payable appropriate to her circumstances. The net disposable income of the person concerned has not changed since the last review of her entitlements in May 2007.

The Executive have further stated that the person concerned, on the advice of the Community Welfare Officer (CWO), met with a representative of the local Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS), in January 2008 and also in early February 2008, in order to discuss her current financial situation with a view to arranging a resolution to the issue.

Additionally, the CWO wrote to the person concerned on 12 February 2008 to make an appointment to consider her present circumstances. To date the person concerned has not contacted the CWO.