Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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123. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if persons who are on long-term illness benefit for 12 months or longer will receive the Christmas bonus payment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58936/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Illness Benefit is not, and has never been, a qualifying payment for the Christmas Bonus.

Illness Benefit is a short-term social welfare scheme which, by its nature, has a high degree of churn with people coming onto the scheme and moving off every week. The duration of claims is often very short. For example, between July and September 2022, almost 115,000 Illness Benefit claims were awarded and, of these, only 21,000 remain in payment. This indicates a churn of 82% over just a three-month period. The average duration of a claim for Illness Benefit is only 6 days.

In addition, many Illness Benefit payments are paid directly to the employer. Therefore, bonus payments, like the Christmas Bonus, might become more of an employer subsidy as opposed to an additional support to the customer. This is not the intent behind the Christmas bonus, nor would it be a targeted use of resources.

However, I do appreciate that individual circumstances can vary from case to case. For this reason, I have asked my officials to examine this issue in respect of people who are in receipt of Illness Benefit for longer periods of time.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.