Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1563. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the amount it would cost to restore the income disregard to the OPFP and JST payments to €146.50. [36401/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The cost of increasing the One Parent Family Payment and the Jobseeker’s Transitional Payment earnings disregard from €110 per week to €146.50 per week is set out in the following table:

The above costings are based on the number of recipients who were working and earning in excess of €110 per week on both the One-Parent Family Payment and the Jobseeker’s Transitional Payment as of March 2017.

The costings do not take into account potential behavioural changes, or the inflow of new entrants, which may arise from the introduction of higher income disregards. There would be additional costs on foot of these two factors, which are not possible to cost and have not been factored into the above costing of €15.3 million.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1564. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the amount it would cost to increase the qualified child payments on all social welfare to €32.30 as recommended by the Committee for Social Protection. [36402/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Increases for a Qualified Child (IQCs) are paid as child-related supplements to most weekly social welfare payments in recognition of the need for greater incomes among benefit-dependent households with dependent children. The current full rate of payment is €29.80 per week per dependent child. The estimated expenditure on qualified child increase in 2018 is €569.1million.

IQC payments do not of themselves constitute a specific social welfare scheme and entitlement to the appropriate primary adult payment must be established in the first instance.

Where children continue in full-time education, payment of the IQC can continue up to 22 years of age or up to the end of the academic year in which the child reaches 22 in the case of long-term payments as well as short-term payments that have been in payment for at least 156 days.

The estimated full year cost of increasing the qualified child increase from €29.80 to €32.30 is an additional €47.7 million. Any changes to the rate of the IQC would have to be considered in an overall budgetary context.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1565. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the amount it would cost to increase the qualified child payments for children over 12 years of age to €47. [36403/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Increases for a Qualified Child (IQCs) are paid as child-related supplements to most weekly social welfare payments in recognition of the need for greater incomes among benefit-dependent households with dependent children. The current full rate of payment is €29.80 per week per dependent child. The estimated expenditure on qualified child increase in 2018 is €569.1million.

IQC payments do not of themselves constitute a specific social welfare scheme and entitlement to the appropriate primary adult payment must be established in the first instance.

Where children continue in full-time education, payment of the IQC can continue up to 22 years of age or up to the end of the academic year in which the child reaches 22 in the case of long-term payments as well as short-term payments that have been in payment for at least 156 days.

Given the complexity involved and in the time available it is currently not feasible to accurately predict the full year cost of introducing a higher rate of the qualified child increase for all social welfare payments to families with dependent children over the age of 12.