Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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651. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will reinstate a concurrent payment of illness benefit for claimants of the widow’s and widower’s pensions; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16361/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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There are a number of basic principles which underpin the Irish social insurance system.

Firstly, there is the contributory principle. Under this principle there is a direct link between the PRSI contributions that a person has paid and entitlement to a varying range of benefits and pensions. Where a person has sufficient PRSI contributions, then benefits and pensions may be paid where a particular contingency arises, without a means test.

Secondly, there is the solidarity principle. Under this principle the benefits and pensions that are paid are not directly related to the amount of PRSI contributions paid by insured persons. PRSI contribution income is instead redistributed to support contributors who are more vulnerable.

There is also a general principle of 'one person, one payment', which applies across the social welfare system. Given the contingency-based nature of this system, it can happen that a person may experience more than one contingency at the same time, but generally, as these payments are to help them meet their income needs, he or she can receive only one of those payments. This principle is common to social security systems across the world.

Overlapping payment arrangements were introduced in the early 1950s when the social insurance system was first established, at a time when there were only ten individual social welfare payments and when rates were significantly lower in real terms than they are now. However, the social welfare system has been significantly developed over the intervening period, with the result that the number of possible combinations of concurrent contingencies has increased greatly.

The concurrent payment of half-rate Illness Benefit and Jobseeker’s Benefit in addition to One-Parent Family Payment, and Widows and Widowers Pensions was discontinued from January 2012, in the context of the Government’s commitments to maintain existing core rates of primary payments for social welfare recipients.

The combined rates of payment if a person was to be paid both a full rate Widow's Contributory Pension and Illness Benefit (plus allowances), neither of which are subject to a means test, would be significantly higher than those paid to other people supported by my Department.

To change the underlying principle of entitlement, and allow people to claim multiple payments would involve significant additional expenditure, which could prove unsustainable in the long-term, and would have to be considered in the overall policy and budgetary contexts.

I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.