Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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300. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the full-year cost in 2016 of increasing the entitlement under the back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme for the age groups specified by €10; €15; €20; €25; €30; €35; €40; €50; €60; €70; €80; €90; and €100, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18486/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The back to school clothing and footwear allowance (BSCFA) scheme provides a once-off payment to eligible families to assist with the extra costs when children start school each autumn. The Government has provided €38.8 million for this scheme in 2016.

I recently announced that the 2016 BSCFA scheme is open for applications. In 2016, similar to arrangements in previous years, a large proportion of BSCFA payments (approximately 109,000 families in respect of approximately 193,000 children) are being fully automated with no application form required. Letters issued in early June informing families of their entitlement and notifying them that payment would issue during the week ending 15th July. The rate of payment is €100 in respect of children aged 4 to 11 and €200 for children over 12 years in second level education. The total amount to be paid to these customers will be circa €29 million.

Customers who did not receive notification of an automated payment are required to make a written application for the payment. Application forms are available in all Departmental offices, via SMS (text Form BTSCFA followed by name and address to 51909), from the website www.welfare.ie or by email to the Department at BSCFA@welfare.ie.

Using total the number of children, 281,000, covered by the scheme in 2015 as a basis, the additional cost to increase the BSCFA rates by the amounts listed per age group is set out in the attached tabular statement. Changes to increase the rate of payment to any scheme administered by the Department would have to be considered in a budgetary context.

Tabular Statement

Full-Year Additional Cost to Increase BSCFA rates by amounts listed: