Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 12: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will conduct research on qualified adult dependents in order to ascertain a breakdown as to their age, gender, caring or parenting responsibilities and educational and employment history. [11868/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The current income support payment structure enables adult claimants to have financial responsibility for dependents, both adult and children. An adult depending on a claimant is referred to as a 'qualified adult.' A claimant is eligible to claim for an increase for a qualified adult if that adult has no social welfare payment in their own right and has means of less than €100 per week from employment or elsewhere. A tapered reduced rate payment can be claimed when a qualified adult earns more than this amount up to a maximum of €310 per week. At the end of December 2011 there were approximately 193,000 adult dependent allowances in payment.

Analysis and information in relation to qualified adult dependents is not routinely collated by my Department across all of its various schemes.

This is, however, a matter that the Department will examine in the future as it develops policies aimed at restructuring and reforming the social welfare system. As they do not claim a payment in their own right, qualified adults, particularly those in the working age cohort, have no engagement with the system nor are they included on the Live Register. They therefore have no access to labour market supports or interventions that are Live Register linked. This situation does not adequately reflect modern society and its needs and, in time, will bear consideration in relation to how best to support those depending on the social welfare system to achieve better outcomes for themselves and their families. Research such as that suggested by the Deputy will support this consideration.