Written answers

Tuesday, 18 December 2012

Department of Social Protection

Departmental Expenditure

Photo of Tom BarryTom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Social Protection the total amount of money annually for carer's allowance, disability allowance and invalidity pension from 2005 to 2012; and if there is ongoing assessment of applicants to determine their continuing qualification for the payment in question. [56880/12]

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The table gives the expenditure per scheme for the disability allowance scheme, the invalidity pension scheme and the carer’s allowance scheme from 2005 to 2012.

Table 1

Number of recipients and expenditure per scheme

YearDisability AllowanceInvalidity PensionCarer’s Allowance
-
€000
€000
€000
2005
630,728
548,285
223,059
2006
738,431
602,414
284,584
2007
901,131
618,133
361,257
2008
1,052,660
685,717
450,260
2009
1,142,769
681,642
502,469
2010
1,109,505
639,994
501,789
2011
1,089,178
606,502
507,193
2012 to Oct-12
920,622 (*)
494,872 (*)
419,658 (*)

(*) provisional

For each of the schemes concerned, a programme of control reviews is carried out annually to determine on-going entitlement. Customers are selected for review according to the risk of their circumstances changing, either in terms of medical eligibility, changes in their means or other changes of circumstances that may affect their entitlement. The majority of reviews carried out are in respect of cases with the highest risk of a change in circumstances. The remainder of reviews are carried out on cases with medium risk with a few low risk cases also being reviewed. In addition, reviews are also undertaken arising from various data matching exercises carried out where the Department’s data is compared to relevant data held by, for example, Revenue, the Private Rental Tenancies Board and the General Registrar’s Office. Control reviews are also carried out, as appropriate, in response to anonymous reports received from the public.

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