Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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115. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the sum of payments made under the exceptional needs payment scheme for each of the years from 2011 to 2015, in tabular form, by county; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4029/16]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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116. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the number of formal requests made and the number refused under the exceptional needs payment scheme to her Department's representative, formally known as the community welfare officer, by county, for each of the years from 2011 to 2015, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4030/16]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 115 and 116 together.

Under the supplementary welfare allowance (SWA) scheme, the Department may make a single exceptional needs payment (ENP) to help meet essential, once-off and unforeseen expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income. The Government has provided €30.3m for exceptional and urgent needs payments in 2016.There is no automatic entitlement to a payment. The ENP scheme is demand led and payments are made at the discretion of the officers administering the scheme taking into account the requirements of the legislation and all the relevant circumstances of the case in order to ensure that the payments target those most in need of assistance.

Details of the expenditure under the ENP scheme for the years 2011 to 2015 is set out in the tabular statement below. The Department does not maintain details of expenditure by county.

Statistics are maintained relating to payments under the ENP scheme, however they are not maintained on the number of applications or the outcome of those applications. Details of the number of payments under the ENP scheme by county are provided for 2013 to 2015 in the tabular statement. This detailed information is not available for 2011 and 2012. In 2011 there were some 226,200 exceptional and urgent needs payments and in 2012 there were 197,500 payments.

Table 1: Exceptional and Urgent Needs Expenditure for 2011 to 2015.

*2015 Provisional Outturn figure

Table 2: Number of Exceptional and Urgent Needs Payments by County for 2013, 2014 and 2015.