John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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564. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full-year cost of extending the family income supplement payment to those engaged on job activation schemes. [13859/17]

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 employees on low earnings with children. FIS is designed to prevent in-work poverty for low paid workers with child dependants and to offer a financial incentive to take-up employment. There are currently over 57,000 families with more than 126,000 children in receipt of FIS. The estimated spend on FIS this year is approximately €422 million.

To qualify for FIS, a person must be engaged in full-time insurable employment which is expected to last for at least 3 months and be working for a minimum of 38 hours per fortnight or 19 hours per week. A couple may combine their hours of employment to meet the qualification criteria. The applicant must also have at least one qualified child who normally resides with them or is supported by them. Furthermore, the average family income must be below a specified amount, which varies according to the number of qualified children in the family.

My Department provides a range of activation supports catering for long-term unemployed jobseekers. These supports include employment schemes such as Community Employment (CE), Tús, and Gateway. These schemes provide part-time temporary work in local communities, as a stepping stone back to employment. The objective of these schemes is to break the cycle of unemployment and maintain work readiness, thereby improving a person’s opportunities to return to the labour market. It is possible for a household to receive a FIS payment where the spouse or partner of the FIS applicant is engaged on one of these schemes. However, to pay FIS directly to someone who is participating in one of these schemes would reduce the incentive for that person to move off a supported employment programme and into full-time remunerative employment.

Research from the ESRI shows that people are better off in work, the results, based on an analysis of current incomes, benefits and taxes, suggest that more than eight out of ten of these unemployed jobseekers would see their income increase by at least 40 per cent upon taking up employment. FIS helps recipients to gain a firm foothold in work and build a better future for their families.

My Department does not have definitive up-to-date data on the household income relating to the households on the various job activation schemes. Therefore it has no way of predicting with any accuracy the potential additional estimated full year cost of extending the family income supplement payment to those engaged on job activation schemes.

Finally, any changes to the FIS scheme would have to be considered in an overall Budgetary context.