Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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79. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the extent to which he has identified the various groups, such as the disability sector, carers, widows, pensioners and those dependent on means-tested payments, affected by financial cutbacks by his Department brought about through the financial crisis with a view to identifying an appropriate restoration programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36000/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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After a series of challenging years, improvements for people in receipt of social welfare payments began in Budget 2015 and continued in Budget 2016. This included increases in the weekly rates of payment for pensioners and in the living alone allowance. There were also increases in child benefit, fuel allowance and the Carer’s Support Grant. In addition, new initiatives aimed at helping families were introduced, such as the back to work family dividend, and the paternity benefit scheme.

I held a pre-Budget Forum in the run up to the recent Budget and I listened carefully to the views of a wide range of organisations representing pensioners, carers, people with disabilities and so on. My priority in Budget 2017 was to make sure that everyone benefits from the recovery - employed, self-employed, retired people, people with disabilities, carers, those who cannot work, urban, rural, young and old.

It also sets out to make work pay through reforms to the PRSI system, including a new deal for the self-employed, and it includes a number of targeted measures to assist lone parents and farmers, among others.

On Budget Day, I announced the first general increase in all weekly rates of payment since 2009. A €5 increase in the weekly rates of payment for all social welfare payments will commence from March, with proportionate increases for qualified adults and those on reduced rates of payment (including jobseekers on age-related reduced rates of payment).

Approximately 1.5 million people will benefit from this increase, from pensioners, people with disabilities, carers, lone parents, maternity and paternity benefit recipients to jobseekers.

I am also extending social insurance benefits for the self-employed. From March, Class S PRSI contributors will be able to avail of Treatment Benefit, which includes free eye and dental exams, and contributions towards the cost of hearings aids and contact lenses.

In addition, and more significantly, self-employed contributors will be eligible for the Invalidity Pension. For the first time, this will give the self-employed access to the safety-net of State income supports if they have a serious illness or injury that prevents them from working without having to go through a means test.

A range of Dental and Optical benefits will also be restored. These will benefit all PRSI paying employees and the self-employed, benefitting approximately 2.5 million people.

There is also a package of measures supporting lone parents in the Budget, encouraging them into the workplace and into education, and helping to reduce their childcare costs. All lone parents on One-Parent Family Payment and Jobseeker’s Transition and Jobseekers Allowance will benefit from the €5 increase in the weekly rates of payment.

A new €500 annual Cost of Education Allowance will be made available to Back to Education Allowance participants with children from the next academic year in September. This will help parents, including lone parents, to return to education.

The income disregards for the One Parent Family Payment and Jobseeker’s Transition payment will rise by €20, from €90 to €110 per week, reversing in part previous reductions, to encourage one parent families to stay in, and return to, work. This will benefit lone parents earning more than €90 per week. For those earning €110 per week or more, it will increase the combined social welfare and earnings income by up to €15 per week from January 2017.

As part of the Government’s commitment to rural Ireland, I announced the total reversal of the Farm Assist measures introduced during the crisis. This is a programme which helps more than 8,000 farm families.

The Social Protection Budget will benefit over 2 million people in Ireland, including the retired, workers, people with disabilities and carers, and the unemployed.

The Budget also represented a significant shift in how the social insurance system interacts with self-employed contributors, with the extension of Treatment Benefits and Invalidity Pension to the self-employed next year. I plan to continue extending cover for the self-employed to other benefits on a phased basis in future Budgets.

The increase in the weekly rates of payment for all social welfare recipients demonstrates that everyone in Irish society can, and will, benefit under this Government from the economic recovery.