Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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395. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will provide a breakdown of applications for exceptional needs payments due to financial hardship, by social welfare areas, month by month for 2021 and 2022; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [2998/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, my Department may make Additional Needs Payments to help meet expenses that a person cannot pay from their weekly income. This is an overarching term, that includes exceptional and urgent needs payments, and certain supplements to assist with ongoing or recurring costs that cannot be met from the customer’s own resources, and which are deemed to be necessary.

Additional Needs Payments are demand led and 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 reporting of this scheme was revised in 2022 to extract more complete information. A statistical summary will be published on a quarterly basis for 2023 onwards. Statistics are not available on applications received for 2021.

Table 1 shows the breakdown of Additional Needs Payment applications by month for 2022.

Table 2 shows the breakdown of Additional Needs Payment applications by County for 2022.

As the figures represent a snapshot of claim activity, they are subject to change.

Any person who considers that they may have an entitlement to an Additional Needs Payment is encouraged to contact their local community welfare service. There is a National Community Welfare Contact Centre in place - 0818-607080 - which will direct callers to the appropriate office.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Tabular Statement

Table 1- Additional Needs Payment Applications by month for 2022

Table 2- Additional Needs Payment Applications by County for 2022