Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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650. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection , further to Parliamentary Question No. 1107 of 14 June, if she will advise on the number of exceptional needs payments and urgent needs payments that have been made from 2020 to date, by county; if this information can be provided in tabular form, by county and by year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34142/22]

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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651. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection , further to Parliamentary Question No. 1107 of 14 June, if she will advise on the number of exceptional needs payment and urgent needs payment applications that have been received by her Department in 2022 to date; the number that have been approved; the number that have been rejected; if this information can be provided in tabular form, by month and by application status; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34143/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 650 and 651 together.

Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, my Department can make additional needs payments to help meet expenses that a person cannot pay from their weekly income. An exceptional needs Payment (ENP) is a single payment to help meet essential, once-off expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income. An urgent needs payment (UNP) may be made to persons who may not normally qualify for supplementary welfare allowance but who have an urgent need which they cannot meet from their own resources or where an alternative is not available at that time. Government has provided €45.75 million for the exceptional and urgent needs schemes in 2022.

The scheme is demand led. Payments are made at the discretion of the officers administering the scheme, taking into account the requirements of the legislation, and all the relevant circumstances of the case in order to ensure that the payments target those most in need of assistance.

The Department is developing more extensive statistics in relation to the number of applications made to the ENP/UNP schemes. The focus of the development has been on current data from January 2022 with details on the number of applications available from this date onward. Details of applications pre-January 2022 are not available at this time. However, it is possible to provide details on the number of payments that were made.

Table 1 show the number of ENPs/UNPs awarded by county for 2020-2022 (end of May).

Table 2 shows the number of ENP/UNP applications received/awarded/disallowed by month to-date for 2022 (end of May).

This represents a snapshot of claim activity taken at 1st June 2022 and is subject to change.

My Department is currently running a major awareness campaign which includes national radio adverts to promote and raise awareness of the Additional Needs Payment. This support is available to anybody on a low income who is experiencing financial hardship regardless of the number of hours they work per week. Anyone who needs support should contact the Department either through their local Intreo or Branch Office or by phoning 0818 60 70 80. Further details on the Additional Needs Payment are available online at: www.gov.ie/en/service/4eb45-additional-needs-payment/.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.