Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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382. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full year cost in 2017 of lowering the requirement to qualify for family income supplement from 19 hours per week to 15 hours per week for one-parent households only; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26650/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Family Income Supplement (FIS) is an in-work support which provides an income top-up for employees on low earnings with children. FIS is designed to prevent in-work poverty for low paid workers with child dependants and to offer a financial incentive to take-up employment. There are over 55,000 families with almost 123,000 children in receipt of FIS, an increase of over 70 per cent since 2011. The estimated spend on FIS this year is approximately €410 million, an increase of around €60 million on last year.

To qualify for FIS, a person must be engaged in full-time insurable employment which is expected to last for at least 3 months and be working for a minimum of 38 hours per fortnight or 19 hours per week. A couple may combine their hours of employment to meet the qualification criteria. The applicant must also have at least one qualified child who normally resides with them or is supported by them. Furthermore, the average family income must be below a specified amount which varies according to the number of qualified children in the family.

The “hours worked” eligibility criterion has been reduced significantly since the introduction of the scheme in 1984, from 30 hours per week to 19 hours per week in 1996. It is important that FIS does not inadvertently subsidise unsustainably low earnings or encourage employers to offer minimal hours of employment.

Parenting alone is not a qualifying condition of FIS so this information is not maintained for FIS recipients. Furthermore as FIS administrative data does not record information on recipients working below 19 hours per week, it is not possible to estimate the costs associated with this measure. However further reducing the “hours worked” threshold would obviously have increased expenditure implications.