Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)
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Question 130: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs when she proposes to expand the free telephone rental scheme by providing for free broadband for older people as promised in the Programme for Government. [18615/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The telephone allowance is a component of the household benefits package which also includes the electricity/gas allowance and free television license schemes. The package is generally available to people living in the State aged 66 years or over who are in receipt of a social welfare payment or who satisfy a means test. It is also available to people aged under 66 who are in receipt of certain social welfare disability payments or carer's allowance. There are currently some 355,000 customers in receipt of the household benefits at an annual cost of €317 million.

The primary objective of the telephone allowance scheme is to ensure access to help in an emergency and to provide an element of security. A secondary objective is to encourage social contact and to assist in the prevention of social isolation for those living alone.

The Department has endeavoured to meet the demands of deregulation, notably in the telecoms market, where it supports multiple providers within the fixed line telephone business.

A restructuring of the telephone allowance to a cash value was undertaken in 2003 and this has facilitated the inclusion of additional providers in the scheme since July 2004. The scheme was further extended to include mobile phones in April 2007 as a result of improvements announced in Budget 2007. Since then, customers have the choice of either opting for a direct credit to a telephone company for their land-line or for a cash payment in respect of their mobile phone. This means that it is no longer necessary for a person to have a fixed line phone in order to benefit from the telephone allowance. There are currently some 15,000 customers availing of the mobile phone option.

In addition, the value of the telephone allowance was increased in line with general price increases in August 2007 from €296 per annum to €310.80 per annum.

The Programme for Government includes a commitment to extend the scheme further to incorporate broadband services for older people. My Department is currently examining how best to implement this commitment. It should be noted that where people access the internet using a land-line, the telephone allowance applies to their bill usage and will cover the cost of calls or internet usage up to the level of their allowance.