Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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384. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the action she will take to ensure that those who have had their rent supplement reduced due to involvement with community employment, JobBridge or other similar schemes will have them reinstated to the previous level once these schemes have ended in the case where full employment is not the result. [40687/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. There are currently over 82,500 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €403 million for 2013. Rent supplement is calculated to ensure that an eligible person, after the payment of rent, has an income equal to the rate of supplementary welfare allowance appropriate to his or her family circumstances, less a minimum weekly contribution of €30 (€35 for couples) which each recipient is required to pay from his or her own resources.

The existing rent supplement assessment provides for a gradual withdrawal of payment as hours of employment or earnings increase. Those availing of part-time employment and/or training opportunities can continue to receive rent supplement subject to their satisfying the standard means assessment rules. Where a person has additional income in excess of the standard weekly rate of supplementary welfare allowance, the first €75 of such additional income together with 25% of any additional income above €75 is disregarded for means assessment purposes. This includes people on community employment, jobbridge and other activation schemes as well as people in open market employment. Where an activation programme is completed by a rent supplement recipient, the entitlement is revised to reflect any changes in financial circumstances subject to all other conditions of the scheme being met.