Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

401. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if scholarship awards for PhD students are excluded from the means test for the one-parent family payment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58802/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Scholarship awards for PhD students are not excluded from the means test for persons in receipt of one-parent family payment.

The social protection system includes a variety of social assistance payments with different rules in relation to means testing, reflecting the different contingencies under which payments are made. The means assessment reflects the fact that there is an expectation that people with reasonable amounts of income or capital are in a position to use these resources to support themselves so that social welfare expenditure can be directed towards those who need it most.

My Department encourages social welfare recipients to avail of education and training. In addition, income received from the SUSI grant is disregarded in the means test for most social welfare schemes.

Any fees paid to the relevant educational establishment under SUSI are not counted as means.

Disregards across all of the Department's schemes are kept under constant review and any changes have to be considered in a budgetary context.