Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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Question 36: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she has satisfied herself that the automated service of the back to school clothing and footwear allowance is only making payments to persons who are entitled to them. [21432/11]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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As the Deputy is aware, the administrative arrangements for the 2011 back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme are different from those that applied in previous years. In previous years these applications were manually processed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) on behalf of the Department. For this year the majority of back to school clothing and footwear allowance entitlements were fully automated with no application form required from customers.

This year the automated process identified some 127,000 households and generated payments in respect of some 243,000 children. The back to school clothing and footwear allowance is paid in respect of eligible children between the ages of: - 2 and 17 years of age, and - between the ages of 18 and 22, if in full time education.

In order to receive a payment on an automated basis the parent of the child must have been in receipt of a qualifying payment that included an increase in respect of a qualified child at the commencement of the scheme and also the household had to satisfy the means test for the scheme. The scheme commenced from the 1st June 2011 with the entitlement created based on the preceding week. As part of this year's administrative arrangements the Department will carry out a full review of the process and identify any improvements for subsequent years. In addition, if the Department establishes that any person received a payment to which he/she was not entitled, it will seek to recover that amount in full.