Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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188. To ask the Minister for Social Protection when a final response will issue further to correspondence (details supplied) regarding eligibility criteria under the free travel pass scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28450/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I understand that a final reply will issue in response to your representations this week.

The free travel scheme is available to all people aged over 66 living permanently in the State. Applicants who are under age 66 must be in receipt of a qualifying payment in order to qualify for the scheme. The qualifying payments for those aged under 66 are invalidity pension, blind pension, disability allowance, carer’s allowance or an equivalent social security payment from a country covered by EC Regulations or one with which Ireland has a Bilateral Social Security Agreement. Accordingly, there are currently approx. 828,000 customers with direct eligibility with an annual allocation of €77 million.

If the scheme was to be extended to people under 66 who are not eligible for a qualifying payment, an assessment procedure would be required for all such applications, changing the nature of the scheme. Successive Governments have instead used existing underlying entitlements to confer eligibility for this scheme, and there are no plans to change this.

Any decision to extend the free travel scheme would have budgetary consequences and would have to be considered in the context of budget negotiations.