Written answers
Tuesday, 16 January 2018
Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection
Social Welfare Benefits
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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1571. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated cost of increasing family allowances (details supplied) by 1%; and the percentage impact this would have on the at risk of poverty rate for persons living in households with children. [54443/17]
Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The cost of increasing the rates specified by the Deputy by 1% is €53.2 million in a full year. The breakdown of this cost is detailed in the following table:
Scheme | Cost €m |
|---|---|
| Maternity Benefit | 2.5 |
| Adoptive Benefit | 0.0 |
| Child Benefit | 20.45 |
| Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance | 0.5 |
| Working Family Payment (formerly Family Income Supplement) | 14.1 |
| Supplementary Welfare Allowance | 1.6 |
| Carer's Allowance | 6.9 |
| Carer's Benefit | 0.3 |
| One-Parent Family Payment | 4.0 |
| Deserted Wife's Benefit | 0.7 |
| Deserted Wife's Allowance | 0.01 |
| OIB Orphan’s Payment | 0.0 |
| Carer's Support Grant | 1.91 |
| Diet Supplement | 0.02 |
| Health and Safety Benefit | 0.0 |
| Guardian's Payment (Non Contributory) | 0.05 |
| Guardian's Payment (Contributory) | 0.1 |
| Paternity Benefit | 0.1 |
| Overall Total | 53.2 |
It should be noted that there is no specific rate for Diet Supplement and, accordingly, the cost provided above reflects a 1% increase in overall expenditure in the scheme.
The costs shown above are on a full year basis and are based on the estimated number of recipients in 2018. It should also be noted that these costings include proportionate increases for qualified adults and for those on reduced rates of payment, where relevant. For the Working Family Payment, the cost is estimated by increasing each income threshold by 1%.
Using the tax/welfare microsimulation model SWITCH (which was developed by the ESRI and estimates the likely effects of policies on household incomes, families and poverty), there was no significant impact (less than 0.1%) on either the at-risk-of-poverty rate for the population overall or for children specifically.
There are a number of caveats which should be noted in relation to this finding. Firstly, the current SWITCH model is based on data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions, where the income referenced is from January 2015 to December 2016. In addition, it was not possible to include all of the rate increases in the model, as the number of individuals nationally receiving payments under some schemes (such as Adoptive Benefit and Health & Safety Benefit) is quite small (and care is taken to ensure that the data are aggregated to avoid the indirect identification of respondents). Furthermore, the Paternity Benefit scheme had not yet been included in the model as this scheme came into effect in September 2016. In this regard, care must be taken in interpreting this result.
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