Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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702. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to restore farm assist payments to 2013 levels; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42354/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The farm assist scheme provides support for farmers on low incomes and is similar to jobseeker’s allowance. Farm assist recipients retain the advantages of the jobseeker’s allowance scheme such as the retention of secondary benefits and access to activation programmes. The 2017 Revised Estimates for my Department provide for expenditure of €82.8 million on the farm assist scheme.

Budget 2017 introduced measures in relation to the assessment of means for farm assist which reversed all changes introduced in Budgets 2012 and 2013. These measures included that farm income would be assessed at 70% (down from 100%) with an additional annual means disregard of €254 for each of the first two children and €381 for the third and subsequent children. These improvements came into effect in March 2017.

In addition, Budget 2017 increased the rate of payment for farm assist by €5 per week to €193 per week.