John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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345. To ask the Minister for Social Protection his plans to reinstate a diet supplement payment; the way in which persons, particularly those in receipt of social welfare payments, are to manage these payments without the diet supplement payment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17540/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Diet supplement, administered under the supplementary welfare allowance (SWA) scheme, is payable to qualifying persons, in receipt of the supplement prior to February 2014, who have been prescribed a special diet as a result of a specified medical condition. There are currently 3,300 in receipt of the diet supplement of diet supplement at a cost of €4.6 million in 2017.

Following the outcome of a review of the costs of healthy eating and specialised diets by the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute commissioned by the Department during 2013, the scheme has been closed to new applicants from 1 February 2014. The research showed that the average costs across all of the retail outlets of the diets supplemented under the scheme can be met from within one third of the minimum personal rate of social welfare payment, i.e. the SWA rate which was then paid at €186 per week. The weekly rate of SWA has recently increased to €191 further to Budget 2017. The diet supplement scheme was discontinued for new applicants on the basis of this evidence and I have no plans to reverse this decision.

Existing recipients continue to receive the diet supplement at the current rate of payment for as long as they continue to have an entitlement to the scheme or until their circumstances change. This measure ensured that nobody was immediately worse off by the closure of the scheme.

In cases of particular hardship, officials continue to have the legislative power to award a SWA payment in cases of exceptional need. I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.