John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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557. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full-year cost of allowing lone parents in employment whose children are aged between seven and 14 to receive both the jobseeker's transition payment and family income supplement if they meet the qualifying criteria. [13851/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The jobseeker’s transitional payment (JST) is available to lone parents (both former one-parent family payment recipients and new lone parents), who have a youngest child aged 7 to 13 years, inclusive. These customers are exempt from the jobseeker’s allowance conditions that require them to be available for, and genuinely seeking, full-time work.

While it is a condition of the JST scheme that recipients must continue to parent alone, this is not a qualifying condition of the family income supplement (FIS) and so this information is not maintained for FIS recipients. From the data currently available on household composition within the FIS scheme, it is not possible to determine which FIS recipients, who are also lone parents, would satisfy the eligibility criteria to qualify for a JST payment. It is therefore not possible to provide an accurate costing of extending the payment of FIS to JST recipients.

Budget 2017 contained several measures which benefited JST recipients. These included the 85% Christmas Bonus, which was paid to JST recipients in early December and the increase in the weekly earnings disregard for JST recipients from €90 to €110. This increase came into effect in early January 2017. JST recipients also benefited from the €5 weekly increase in social welfare payments which took effect earlier this month.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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558. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full-year cost of making jobseeker's transitional payment and the SUSI grant payable to lone parents regardless of the age of the youngest child or whether the family is in receipt of rent supplement. [13852/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Lone parents who wish to undertake a full-time third level education course can continue to receive income support from my Department irrespective of the age of the youngest child or whether or not they are in receipt of rent supplement.

For those lone parents in receipt of the Jobseeker’s Transitional payment, without rent supplement, they may have access to both the SUSI maintenance grant and the SUSI free fees grant.

For those lone parents who are in receipt of rent supplement and who wish to undertake a full-time course, they must transition to the Back to Education Allowance to continue receiving their income support from my Department. These lone parents may also be eligible for the SUSI free fees grant. However, they are not eligible for the SUSI maintenance grant in accordance with SUSI eligibility rules, which fall under the remit of the Department of Education and Skills.

Any changes to the rules of eligibility to the SUSI maintenance grant are a matter for my colleague the Minister for Education and Skills. The estimated cost of paying the SUSI maintenance grant to a lone parent, irrespective of the age of the youngest child and whether or not they are in receipt of housing support, is therefore a matter for the Department of Education and Skills.