Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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73. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will reinstate the bereavement grant and make additional funds available to the exceptional needs payment, which were cut in January 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8439/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In recent Budgets the Department has protected primary social welfare rates. Abolishing the bereavement grant provided a significant annual saving. This allowed the Department to protect other social welfare payments such as the State pension.

There are a range of supports available for people following bereavement which provide more significant support than the grant. These include a weekly-paid widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner’s (contributory and non-contributory) pensions, which are based on contributions or a means test, and a once-off widowed or surviving civil partner grant of €6,000 where there is a dependent child. A number of social welfare payments, including State pension, continue in payment for six weeks following a death. In Budget 2016, the Government increased the payment after death period to 12 weeks for carer’s allowance. Guardian payments are available where someone cares for an orphaned child. A special funeral grant of €850 is paid where a person dies because of an accident at work or occupational disease.

The supplementary welfare allowance (SWA) scheme provides assistance to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs and those of their dependants. Under the SWA scheme, the Department of Social Protection may make a single exceptional needs payment (ENP) to help meet essential, once-off and unforeseen expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet from their weekly income, which may include help with funeral and burial expenses. The Government has provided €31.5 million for exceptional and urgent needs payments in 2017.

Although ENP expenditure has reduced in recent years, the scheme is demand led and continues to provide assistance to those with exceptional needs taking into account the requirements of the legislation and all the relevant circumstances of the case in order to ensure that the payments target those most in need of assistance. Provisional expenditure for 2016 is €32 million, showing that expenditure under the scheme is stabilising in recent years in line with the improvement in the economy.

Any decision to restore the bereavement grant would have to be considered in the context of overall budgetary negotiations.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.