Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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1258. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the expenses received by elected city and county councillors as distinct from their salary is reckonable as income when means testing a cohabiting couple in circumstances in which one partner is a councillor. [25427/18]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Department has a number of social assistance schemes where, in order to qualify for the payment, the person must satisfy a means test. These schemes include, among others, Jobseeker’s Allowance, One-parent Family Payment, Disability Allowance, and the State Pension (non-contributory).

These social assistance schemes differ from the Department’s social insurance schemes, which are dependent on the person’s social insurance contribution record. Social assistance schemes exist to ensure that people without adequate means are provided with income supports by the State in order to alleviate poverty. The payments are means tested to ensure that the State’s resources are directed towards those who are in the most need of financial support. Accordingly, social welfare legislation provides that for social assistance schemes, all cash income and any savings or property other than the family home, is assessable as means.

However vouched expenses related to the work of elected city and county councillors are not assessable as income in the means test of social assistance schemes.