Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

794. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the reason a maintenance payment paid to an ex-spouse is not taken into account when calculating means to qualify for the fuel allowance payment. [12318/23]

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

The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €33 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €924 each year) from late September to April, at an estimated cost of €412 million in 2023. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. Only one allowance is paid per household.

The criteria for Fuel Allowance are framed in order to direct the limited resources available to my Department in as targeted a manner as possible. To qualify for the Fuel Allowance payment, a person must satisfy all the qualifying criteria including a means test and the household composition criteria. The means test ensures that the recipient has a verifiable income need and that resources are targeted to those who need them most.

The means test does not take account of a person’s expenditure commitments or income tax circumstances. Allowing deductions in means assessed for outgoings would significantly increase the complexity of the means assessment and would give rise to inconsistencies in how means tests are applied across schemes.

If maintenance payments were taken into account, any reduction in these means as a consequence of maintenance payments to another person would, in effect, result in the welfare system subsidising or possibly fully meeting these payments.

Where a person has maintenance obligations on foot of a Court order and they find that they can no longer afford to meet those obligations, for example because their circumstances have changed, it is open to that person to seek to have the Court review the order in light of their changed income position.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.