Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 150: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons in receipt of social welfare allowances paid weekly by cheque; the cost to the State of issuing payment by paper; if there are savings to be made by switching to electronic transfer for some or all of these type of payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17110/12]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Department currently issues approximately 87 million payments in respect of over 60 welfare schemes on a weekly, monthly and annual basis depending on the scheme type. These are delivered via electronic transfers to An Post and to banks, building society accounts, certain credit unions and by cheque.

104,150 people were paid by cheque over the course of February 2012. This represented 5.1% of all payments made during February. The other methods of payment were by Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) to a bank account or other financial institution and by Electronic Information Transfer (EIT) to An Post for payment at post offices. EFT is fully electronic in that the customer receives the value of their payment without any manual intervention after it has been issued by the Department. 991,107 (48.4%) of the people who received payments during February were paid by EFT.

In the case of EIT, the value is transmitted by the Department to An Post electronically but is then paid to the customer in cash at a post office. 951,861 (46.5%) of the people who received payments during February were paid in cash at post offices.

In 2011, my Department incurred expenditure of €301,242 in respect of cheque stationery and bank clearing charges. This figure does not include postal or other administration charges. While the costs associated with cheque payments are low, fully electronic payment methods cost less. The Department is currently finalising a new e-Payment Strategy which takes into account international developments in delivering welfare payments, the need for good and effective controls and the costs associated with making these payments. The strategy will be published later this year.