Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 66: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if changes will be made to the back to work enterprise allowance. [9245/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The back to work scheme was introduced to assist long term unemployed people, lone parents, and sickness related welfare recipients to return to active employment either by taking up employment or becoming self-employed. It is designed to support people who would not otherwise be able to return to the workforce for financial reasons.

There are two strands to the scheme, the back to work allowance (BTWA) for persons who take up employment and the back to work enterprise allowance (BTWEA) for persons who become self employed.

To qualify for the back to work enterprise allowance a person must set up a self-employment business that has been approved by a Partnership Company or a department's facilitator and, in the case of someone on the live register, they must be in receipt of a jobseeker's payment for 2 years prior to commencing their self employment. Participants on the back to work enterprise allowance receive a tapered percentage of their social welfare payment over a four year period. Participants may also retain entitlement to certain other secondary benefits. At 20th Feb 2009, there were 7,727 participants availing of the back to work scheme and, of these, 4,430 were participating in the self-employed option.

The operation of the scheme has been subject to review and modification over the years to ensure that it continues to assist those furthest from the labour market. The requirement to be in receipt of a relevant social welfare payment for a minimum period has always been a feature of the scheme. The qualifying conditions will continue to be monitored in the context of the objectives of the scheme and the changing economic circumstances.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 67: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs her plans to allow jobseeker's to work voluntarily to maintain or acquire skills or to keep busy while receiving a jobseeker's payment. [9261/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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An unemployed person may qualify for Jobseeker's Benefit or Jobseeker's Allowance. Jobseeker's Benefit is based on a person's social insurance record Jobseeker's Allowance is based on weekly means. A fundamental qualifying condition for Jobseeker's Benefit is that an individual must be available for full time work.

However, a person who engages in voluntary work within the State may continue to be entitled to Jobseeker's Benefit or Allowance provided that, in engaging in the voluntary work, the customer continues to satisfy the statutory conditions of being available for and genuinely seeking work.

Examples of voluntary work in which jobseeker's may engage include:

helping the sick, elderly or persons with a disability

assisting youth clubs, church groups, sports groups, cultural organisations, local resident associations

The groups involved may be nationally organised groups or local voluntary or community groups. The aim of the Voluntary Work Option is twofold, namely — to encourage voluntary organisations to involve jobseeker's to the greatest extent possible in their existing activities by creating new opportunities for voluntary work and to inform jobseeker's of their freedom to involve themselves in voluntary work and to encourage them to do so.

Individuals or organisations looking to avail of the option may request a VW 1 form from any social welfare local office.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 68: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will review eligibility for all means tested social welfare payments in view of increased requirements and hardship; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9249/09]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 173: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the degree to which she will ease qualification guidelines in respect of various entitlements having particular regard to the current economic situation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9462/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 68 and 173 together.

There are no plans to review means testing arrangements. Any further improvements to the means testing arrangements for social welfare schemes generally would have to be considered in a Budgetary context and having regard to available resources.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 69: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the plans she has to introduce a system in which persons entitled to free travel who can not avail of public transport for hospital appointments could obtain a refund for the cost of taxis; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9017/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I have no plans to introduce a system to refund the cost of taxis under the free travel scheme.

The free travel scheme provides pass holders with free travel on the main public and private transport services. These include road, rail and ferry services provided by companies such as Bus Átha Cliath, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann, as well as LUAS and services provided by over 80 private transport operators. The vast majority of private contractors providing services under the scheme operate in rural areas, including those in the Rural Transport Initiative. Time restrictions, which had applied to the use of the travel pass were lifted in 2006. One of the principal reasons for lifting the restriction was to enable people to use their free travel pass to attend for early hospital appointments.

Various alternatives to the existing system have been examined. A study, "A Review of the Free Schemes", published in 2000 under the Department's programme of expenditure reviews concluded that a voucher or refund type system, which would be open to a wide range of transport providers including taxis and hackneys, would be extremely difficult to administer, open to abuse and unlikely to be sufficient to afford an acceptable amount of travel. This position remains unchanged.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of people who have been taken off rent supplement in each of the past three years and switched to the rental accommodation scheme; and the estimated saving this represents to the Exchequer in each of the years. [9272/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Rent supplement is administered on behalf of the Department by the community welfare service of the Health Service Executive as part of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.

With over 31,000 people in receipt of rent supplement for 18 months or more, the rent supplement scheme has to be seen in the context of overall housing policy, particularly in the case of long-term claimants.

In response to this situation the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) was introduced in 2004 and is being implemented on a phased basis. RAS gives local authorities specific responsibility for meeting the longer-term housing needs of people receiving rent supplement for 18 months or more. Since 2005, over 18,000 rent supplement recipients have been transferred to RAS units and other social housing options. The expectation is, that over time, costs arising from the transfer of rent supplement recipients to RAS will be exchequer neutral. The number of rent supplement cases transferred to RAS for the past three years is set out in the tabular statement.

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 73: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason she has not taken action to withhold 20% from the rent supplement payments that are made to non-resident landlords. [9281/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Rent supplement is administered on behalf of the Department by the community welfare service of the Health Service Executive as part of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.

The value of rent supplement payments made to tenants whose landlords live outside the state represents no more than 1.5% of total expenditure on rent supplement in 2008. The value of rent supplement payments nominated by tenants to be paid directly to landlords living abroad, represents just over 0.25% of all rent supplement payments.

The Department provides the Revenue Commissioners with details of non-resident landlords who have rent supplement payments paid directly to them, in order that compliance with tax legislation can be monitored by the Revenue Commissioners. However, currently it does not have the facilities to withhold tax in these cases and development of a tax deduction system would prove very costly.

The Department of Finance has initiated a review of the statutory requirement on tenants to make deductions from rent paid direct to landlords living abroad. This review is expected to be completed shortly. The Department will examine the position regarding this issue following the completion of the review.

In the meantime the Department continues to work with the Office of the Revenue Commissioners to ensure that any tax risks relating to landlords with rent supplemented tenancies are kept to a minimum.