Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 90: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs her plans to formalise the system of allocating financial support resulting from extreme weather events. [8927/10]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Financial support for people who have suffered as a result of an emergency event, including extreme weather events is normally addressed through the exceptional and urgent needs payment provisions of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme.

Under the legislation governing the scheme, the HSE may make a single payment to meet an exceptional need to people on social welfare or health board payments. This is a once-off payment to meet an unforeseen or special need that cannot be met from a person's basic income. Assistance in the form of an urgent needs payment can be also made to persons who would not normally be entitled to SWA, to assist, for example in cases of an extreme weather event with immediate needs, such as food, clothing, fuel, household goods and shelter. Assistance can be provided to people affected in cash or in kind. There is no automatic entitlement to these payments. Each application is determined on the particular circumstances of the case.

Where a particular event has caused loss and damage to a large number of people on a wide-spread scale and the support required is greater than can be coped with by the usual assistance mechanisms then humanitarian assistance can be considered. A decision to provide humanitarian aid to people in an area affected by an emergency event can only be made by the Government. Humanitarian assistance is designed to provide hardship alleviation assistance, as opposed to compensation, to people affected by an emergency event who are not covered by insurance and is based on an income test.

In recognition of the devastation suffered by people in many areas of the country as a result of the flooding from November 2009 onwards the Government set up a humanitarian assistance scheme to provide income tested financial support to people who have suffered damages to their homes not covered by insurance.

Community Welfare Service staff throughout the country have been providing support to families since this flooding occurred. Up to the 12th February 2010 they had already made over 2,406 payments to 1,189 individuals to the value of €925,000. The average payment per individual is over €777; with the largest payment to an individual was in excess of €20,000. Initially, the vast bulk of applications for humanitarian assistance were for small amounts to assist with basics such as food, clothing, bedding, heating and the hire of dehumidifiers.

As the flood waters began to recede in some areas and householders were able to assess the extent of damage to the contents of their homes, claims have been submitted and approved for items such as carpets, flooring, furniture and white goods.

While assistance is available for structural repairs to homes not covered by household insurance, very few large scale claims have been made at this stage. This is because homeowners have not yet established the cost of repair in many cases, for example because they are awaiting a builder's estimates. It is expected that large scale claims will be received over the coming weeks.

People seeking assistance in the event of an extreme weather event should contact their local Community Welfare Office. Further information in relation to exceptional and urgent needs payments and the humanitarian assistance scheme are available from the Community Welfare Service and from the Department's website (www.welfare.ie) and the HSE's website (www.hse.ie).