Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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101. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will protect the family income supplement payment from all means testing across all Departments including for local authority rent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36047/16]

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 low paid employees with children. FIS is designed to tackle child and family poverty and to offer a financial incentive to take-up employment as compared to social welfare payments. There are over 56,000 families with over 124,000 children in receipt of FIS. The estimated spend on FIS this year is approximately €410 million.

For the purposes of weekly means tested social assistance payments, such as jobseeker’s allowance, one-parent family payment and disability allowance, Social Welfare legislation provides that any FIS payments to the relevant family are not assessable as means.

In relation to other Government Departments, the types of income, which are taken into account for assessing means for their purposes is a matter in the first instance for those Departments.

However, I am advised by the Department of Health that income from FIS is not taken into account in the assessment for a medical card or GP card.

The making and amending of rent schemes is the responsibility of local authorities as an integral part of their housing management functions, subject to broad principles laid down by the Department of Housing, Community and Local Government.

I have been advised that considerable work has been carried out by the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government in developing a draft framework for a harmonisation of the approach to be taken by local authorities in regard to various aspects of rent schemes. The proposals are currently being reviewed in light of the broader commitment given in Rebuilding Ireland, the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness to review the disparate systems of differential rent in place across local authorities. This review will be completed by the end of Quarter 2 2017.