Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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453. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the projected cost increase in 2017 of reversing the cuts to the one-parent family payment in order that it continues to be paid until a child reaches 18 years of age. [27517/16]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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454. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the cost in 2017 of reinstating the income disregard of €147.50 for one-parent family payments and jobseeker's transitional payments. [27518/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 453 and 454 together.

The cost of increasing the One-Parent Family Payment (OFP) in order that it continues to be paid when the youngest child reaches 18 years of age is not currently available. Customers transitioning from (OFP) move to a multitude of social welfare schemes and so this costing would require a complex exercise across a wide range of datasets within the Department.

I am, however, able to provide the Deputy with the approximate cost to the Exchequer of increasing the age of the youngest child for receipt of OFP to 12 and 14.

Please see this information in tabular form as follows:

With regard to the Deputy’s question of re-instating the income disregard, it is assumed that the Deputy is referring to the figure of €146.50 per week for the income disregard for OFP and the Jobseeker’s Transitional Payment (JST). The Deputy should note that the disregard of €146.50 only ever applied to OFP. The JST disregard was originally set at €60 per week and was then increased in January 2015 to €90 per week.

Please see the requested information in tabular form as follows:

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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455. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the cost in 2017 of disregarding maintenance payment when means testing one-parent family, jobseeker's transitional and jobseeker's allowance payments. [27519/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Social welfare legislation provides for a disregard of maintenance payments in relation to housing costs actually incurred (up to a maximum of €95.23 per week) across a range of means-tested social assistance schemes (such as jobseeker's allowance, one-parent family payment, disability allowance and the state pension non-contributory), with half the balance of the maintenance being assessed as means.

Any change would have implications for other social assistance schemes where similar arrangements apply.

It is not possible at this time to provide a cost for this proposal as collating the relevant data across the various schemes would require significant resources.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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456. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the cost in 2017 of disregarding family income supplement, FIS, when means testing for all social protection payments. [27520/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Social welfare legislation provides that Family Income Supplement (FIS) payments are not assessable when means testing assets and income for weekly social assistance schemes such as jobseeker’s allowance, disability allowance, one-parent family payment, carer’s allowance, state pension non-contributory and farm assist.

The supplementary welfare allowance (SWA) scheme is the safety net scheme within the overall welfare system and provides assistance to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs and those of their dependants. In order to determine eligibility for SWA, the means test for this scheme takes into account the value of weekly social welfare payments generally, including FIS payments. This is consistent with the overall objective of the scheme.

It is not possible, within the time available for this reply, to estimate the cost of disregarding FIS payments for SWA purposes. There are currently no plans to change the existing SWA rules in relation to FIS payments.