Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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595. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if there is an even distribution of resources and funding supplied to the MABS services nationwide or if there are disparities between counties. [1756/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS), under the aegis of the Citizens Information Board, (CIB) is the State's money advice service and provides assistance to people, in particular those on low incomes or living on social welfare payments, who are over-indebted. As part of its free services, MABS also provides help and advice to those in mortgage arrears, and administers the Abhaile service.

Since the restructuring of the governance arrangements of the 51 local MABS into eight regional companies in October 2018, funding and resources are distributed on a regional basis. Each MABS regional company is overseen by a voluntary Board, which aims to ensure that the provision of, and access to, MABS is consistent and fair across the entire region.

Under this model, all clients in a region have access to all the resources of the entire region and can contact any money advisor in that region about their case by phone, email, online chat or through video conferencing.

In relation to funding and resources, the table below sets out the budget allocation for each of the eight regional MABS companies in 2021. Approximately 90% of each budget allocation corresponds to approved staffing allocations and premises footprints, which varies from each regional company to another, based on their size and demographic reach. The remainder (10%) consists of administrative costs that are common to all regional companies, for example, travel and subsistence, professional fees and training and these are consistent across all services and regions.

I trust this clarifies the position for the Deputy.