Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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1272.To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the length of time allowable to leave the country for recipients of each form of social welfare and State pension; and whether the Minister would consider extending these allowances in order to grant people a freedom to travel. [31629/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Social Protection operates a wide range of schemes and the criteria for paying these outside the State vary according to a number of factors such as the duration of absence from the State, whether it is a contributory or non-contributory payment and the other conditions of payment, such as whether the person is required to be available for work.

The following payments can be retained while a customer is either temporarily or permanently out of the State:

• State Pension Contributory
• Guardians’ Contributory payment
• Disablement Benefit or Death Benefit (under the Occupational injury Benefit Scheme)
• Widows/Widowers or Surviving Civil Partners Contributory Pension
• Invalidity Pension, and
• Partial Capacity Benefit (where Invalidity Pension is the underlying scheme)
• There is no time limit on how long the above payments may be paid while the customer is absent from the State. However, the customer must continue to satisfy all of the relevant scheme qualifying conditions for payment to continue.
• For most other payments, a person is allowed travel for shorter periods of 2-3 weeks such as holidays and receive payment upon return to the State. The circumstances under which a person may receive payment for periods while absent from the State vary across other schemes and any person who has a query in this regard should contact the relevant scheme area of the Department who will provide full information regarding payment during such absences from the State. In all cases the Department must be notified in advance of travelling, outlining the circumstances and the intended return dates. Contact details for all Department of Social Protection schemes are published on the Department’s website.
• I am satisfied that the current arrangements allow sufficient latitude for customers to be temporarily absent from the State while protecting the integrity of each scheme and, at this stage, I am not considering any changes to the legislation governing these arrangements. Any revisions to the existing absence from the State provisions which would extend the allowable periods outside of the State would incur additional expenditure and would have to be considered in an overall policy and budgetary context.
• I trust this clarifies the position for the Deputy.