Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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90. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he is aware of the widespread concerns of the Irish Postmasters Union in respect of recent correspondence issued by his Department regarding payment of jobseeker's payments through financial institutions other than post offices; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15103/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of the concerns of the Irish Postmasters’ Union. In respect of payments my Department provides two main options for payment methods for its customers: payments direct to customer accounts in financial institutions or payments in cash at post offices.

In 2015 my department made over 38 million cash payments at Post Offices at a cost of €54 million. These welfare payments through post offices are across all of the department’s major schemes: state pension, jobseekers, one parent family payments, widow/ers or survivors pensions, carers payments, disability payments and child benefit.

I want to emphasise that for the vast majority of my department’s schemes the department’s customers are given the choice of what payment method they wish to receive their social welfare payment. The vast majority of new customers choose to have payments made directly into their accounts in financial institutions which reflects a societal trend towards payment by electronic funds transfer. For example, 83% of new Child Benefit customers and 70% of new State Pension customers chose this option in 2015.

Many of my department’s customers are in employment. My department’s focus must be on our customers and to this end my department’s policy is to make payments to in-work customers directly to accounts rather than customers being inconvenienced by two separate payment methods.

My department has a cohort of jobseeker customers who are classified as casual jobseekers. These are in-work customers who can claim a jobseekers payment for 2 to 3 days per week or who work week on/week-off. These customers were paid by cheque each week.

Those customers were paid by cheque due to the changing nature of their work/claiming patterns and the short turn-around time to issue payments. It is important to note that they were not paid via post offices under the department’s existing cash payments contract with An Post.

My department has developed its payment capacity in respect of changing work and claiming patterns and is offering payments direct to accounts in financial institutions for casual Jobseeker customers thereby increasing customer convenience. This is in line with wider departmental policy where the focus is on ensuring that in-work customers are paid by the most convenient method possible.

My department has written to all of these casual jobseekers offering the option of a payment to an account. The vast majority have responded and opted for payment to an account.

If customers wish to continue to be paid by cheque they can make their preference known to their local social welfare office which handles their claim.

The recent “Kerr Report” sets out the challenges that An Post and Postmasters face as they seek to ensure that the post office network remains relevant in the context of the inexorable shift towards electronic payments.

My department is engaging as appropriate with the Departments of Communications, Climate Change and Natural Resources and Public, Expenditure and Reform in addressing the recommendations of the report.