Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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502. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason illness benefit is no longer paid to working widows in receipt of the widow's pension; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13157/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The social welfare system is primarily a contingency-based income support system, with entitlement based on a number of defined contingencies such as sickness, unemployment, old age or widowhood. The income support system is underpinned by a general principle of ‘one person, one payment’ even if a person may experience more than one contingency at the same time. For example, an unemployed person may become sick. The general approach is that if a person experiences more than one of these contingencies at the same time, he or she can receive only one of those payments. This principle is common to other social security systems.

In the past, there were a limited number of exceptions in the social insurance system to this general principle particularly in the context of short-term benefits. For instance, recipients of one-parent family payment, widows and widowers pensioners etc. could, until recent years, also receive short-term social insurance benefits, such as illness benefit and jobseeker's benefit at half-rate at the same time. These overlapping payment arrangements were introduced in the early 1950s when the social insurance system was first established, at a time when there were only 10 individual social welfare payments and when rates were significantly lower in relative terms than they are now.

In the context of the difficult fiscal environment in recent years and the Government's commitment to maintain existing core rates of primary payments for social welfare recipients, the concurrent payment of half-rate illness benefit and jobseeker's benefit in addition to one-parent family payment, widows and widowers pensions etc. was discontinued from January 2012. It is realistic and prudent to maintain the underlying principle of ‘one person, one payment’ for the social welfare system. To do otherwise could potentially lead to very significant consequences for its sustainability in the long-term.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.