Written Answers Nos. 156-168
156. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Social Protection the estimated increase to the Exchequer from PRSI contributions arising from applying minimum wage legislation to all craft apprentices; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30019/24]
View answerIt is not possible to provide the information requested by the Deputy.
My Department is unable to identify the number of craft apprentices currently in employment in order to estimate any additional PRSI yield that would be generated from applying the National Minimum Wage to the earnings of those contributors.
157. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Social Protection the funding provided to MABS in each of the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 respectively. [30181/24]
View answerAs you will be aware, the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS), funded by the Citizens Information Board (CIB), a statutory body under the aegis of my Department, is the State’s money advice service.
MABS provides free advice and support to people on debt and money management issues, in particular those on low income or dependent on social welfare supports.
MABS also provides support to people in mortgage arrears and is the gateway to Abhaile - the National Mortgage Arrears Resolution Service.
MABS comprises of eight regional companies, MABS Support and National Traveller MABS.
Each company has the flexibility to allocate resources appropriately in response to customer needs. In addition, customers in a region have access to all MABS services of the region and can contact any MABS Money Advisor in that region about their case by phone, email, online chat or video conferencing.
The funding provided by CIB to these ten MABS companies in the period 2019 to 2024 is outlined in the table below.
These figures include annual funding to the eight regional MABS companies in the period 2019 - 2024 for operation of the Dedicated Mortgage Arrears service, as part of the Abhaile service.
|
- Year |
Funding Provided by CIB to 10 MABS Companies |
|
2019 |
€19,617,138 |
|
2020 |
€20,273,899 |
|
2021 |
€16,485,398 |
|
2022 |
€19,980,120 |
|
2023 |
€20,279,515 |
|
2024 |
€20,868,171 |
158. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will extend the living alone and fuel allowance eligibility criteria to carers in the context of the Budget 2025. [29983/24]
View answerThe Living Alone Increase is a weekly payment, which is not means tested. The Living Alone Increase is an additional payment made each week to persons who live alone and are in receipt of certain Social Protection payments.
These payments include over 66 recipients of State Pension (Contributory), State Pension (Non-contributory), Widow’s, Widower’s, or Surviving Civil Partner’s (Contributory) Pension, Widow's/Widower's Pension under the Occupational Injuries Benefit Scheme, Incapacity Supplement under the Occupational Injuries Benefit Scheme and Deserted Wife's Benefit.
The payment types that allow a person under age 66 to receive the Living Alone Increase are payments to people who have a long-term illness or disability that is Disability Allowance, Invalidity Pension, Incapacity Supplement or Blind Pension.
While a person in receipt of Carer's Allowance may be caring for people who have a long-term illness or disability, payment is not paid on the basis of an illness or disability of the person being cared for and therefore the Living Alone Increase is not payable to those solely in receipt of Carer's Allowance.
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 €382 million in 2024. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. Only one allowance is paid per household.
While Carer's Allowance is not a qualifying payment for Fuel Allowance, a person in receipt of Carer's Allowance may avail of the Fuel Allowance payment in certain circumstances. Fuel Allowance is a household-based payment, and a carer will very often live with and care for a person in receipt of a qualifying payment for Fuel Allowance. Income from Carer's Allowance is disregarded from the fuel means test if the carer is providing full time care and attention to the Fuel Allowance applicant, his/her qualified spouse/civil partner or cohabitant or qualified child(ren).
If a person is getting certain qualifying social welfare payments and also providing full time care and attention to another person, they can keep their main social protection payment in addition to receiving the half-rate Carer's Allowance. They can also receive an extra half-rate Carer’s Allowance if they care for more than one person. Since January 2023, the amount of half-rate Carer’s Allowance received is now disregarded when assessing means for Fuel Allowance purposes.
Any further widening of the qualifying criteria for accessing the living alone increase or the fuel allowance scheme can only be considered while taking account of the overall policy and budgetary situation.
I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
159. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Social Protection the estimated cost to increase the fuel allowance to €38 per week for the 2024-2025 period; and the average time to process a new application for fuel allowance. [30054/24]
View answerThe 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 €382 million in 2024. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. Only one allowance is paid per household.
At the end of December 2023, 411,395 household were in receipt of the Fuel Allowance payment. Based on similar numbers of households qualifying for the Fuel Allowance Payment during the 2024/25 fuel season, the estimated cost of increasing the fuel allowance payment to €38 per week for the 2024-2025 period, an increase of €5 per week, over the course of a 28-week Fuel Season is as follows: -
|
Weekly increase to the Fuel Allowance Payment |
Number of Weeks Payable |
Estimated Number of Recipients |
Estimated Additional Yearly Cost |
|
€5 |
28 |
411,395 |
€57.6m |
The provision of any additional supports such as increasing the weekly rate of the Fuel Allowance would have cost implications and could only be considered while taking account of the overall budgetary context and the availability of financial resources.
The Fuel Allowance is paid, in conjunction with primary social welfare schemes, across a number of IT systems with differing functionality for recording processing activity, and consequently precise information on processing timelines for applications is not available.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
160. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of WTE actuaries at assistant principal officer level employed by in her Department in 2022, 2023 and to-date in 2024, in tabular form. [30055/24]
View answerThe number of actuaries at Assistant Principal grade in the Department of Social Protection is set out below.
|
At year end 2022 |
At year end 2023 |
At end June 2024 |
|
1 |
1 |
0 |
Recruitment for an Assistant Principal(AP) actuary is currently underway, as is a competition for graduates interested in pursuing a professional actuarial qualification, at Administrative Officer level. There is also now an actuary at Principal Officer level employed by my Department.
161. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Social Protection if she has advanced plans to ensure that people who are eligible on the basis of a common law marriage to apply for widows payments, further to a Supreme Court decision (details supplied). [30057/24]
View answer169. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Social Protection the status of a widow’s pension (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30149/24]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 161 and 169 together.
Under the law as currently enacted, entitlement to a Widows, Widowers or Surviving Civil Partner’s Contributory pension is only available to a surviving partner who was party to a marriage or civil partnership.
On Monday 22nd January, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment in relation to the entitlement of an unmarried cohabitant to a Widows, Widowers or Surviving Civil Partner’s Contributory pension. The Supreme Court judgment overruled a previous High Court decision and found in favour of the claimant and his children.
In simple terms, the Court found that section 124 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 (as amended) is inconsistent with the Constitution insofar as it excluded the claimant from the category of persons entitled to benefit from it. The Court reached that conclusion on the basis of the equality guarantee contained in Article 40.1 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court judgment notes that in order to resolve the issue raised by the judgment, a legislative amendment is required.
My officials, in conjunction with the Office of the Attorney General have been considering the measures necessary to respond to the Supreme Court judgment. The judgment raised a number of complex issues, and my officials have been developing the draft legislative changes that are required to implement the decision.
On 18th June, I obtained Government approval for the priority drafting of the legislative changes required to respond to the Supreme Court decision. The General Scheme of a Bill has been referred to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for priority drafting, and the General Scheme is now in the process of going through Pre-legislative Scrutiny with the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands.
My officials in the Department of Social Protection will now work closely with the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to finalise this legislation and I intend to introduce the legislation to Oireachtas as soon as possible.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputies.
162. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Social Protection to ensure that the disability appeal in the name of a person (details supplied) is expedited. [30060/24]
View answerThe Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision making functions.
The Social Welfare Appeals Office has advised me that an appeal by the person concerned was registered in that office on 19 January 2024. It is a statutory requirement of the appeals process that the relevant papers and comments by or on behalf of the Deciding Officer on the grounds of appeal be sought from the Department of Social Protection. These papers were received in the Social Welfare Appeals Office on 31 January 2024. The case was referred to an Appeals Officer on 5 February 2024.
I have been advised that the Appeals Officer, having fully considered all of the available evidence, has decided to disallow the appeal of the person concerned by way of a summary decision. The person concerned was notified of the Appeals Officer’s decision on 28 June 2024.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
163. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Social Protection if appeal for invalidity pension, disability allowance, disability payment in the case of a person (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30070/24]
View answerThe Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision making functions.
The Social Welfare Appeals Office has advised me that there is no record of any appeal by the person concerned having been received by that Office.
The time period within which an appeal may be made is up to 21 days from the date of the notification of the decision. The decision on the invalidity pension claim of the person concerned issued from the Department of Social Protection on 2 May 2024. Any appeal now made will be outside the time allowed to appeal the decision on the claim and will not be accepted.
However, if there are good reasons that explain why the appeal was late, then the person concerned may provide the Social Welfare Appeals Office with these reasons for consideration. There is no right to an appeal after the 21 days has expired and any appeal allowed after that time is at the discretion of the Chief Appeals Officer.
It is also open to the person concerned to request a review of the decision on the claim from the Department at any stage.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
164. Deputy Patricia Ryan asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will outline, with regard to carer’s allowance, the timeframe she considers to be long-term when caring for an ill/disabled relative; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30079/24]
View answerThe Government acknowledges the valuable role that family carers play and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. This commitment is recognised in both the Programme for Government and the National Carers’ Strategy.
The main income supports to carers provided by my department include Carer's Allowance, Carer's Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance, and the Carer's Support Grant. Spending on these payments in 2024 is expected to exceed €1.7 billion.
The Carer’s Allowance is the main scheme by which the department provides income support to carers in the community. At end of June, there were 97,127 people in receipt of Carer's Allowance and the estimated spend on this payment in 2024 is over €1.1 billion.
The primary objective of the payment is to provide an income support to carers whose earning capacity is substantially reduced as a consequence of their caring responsibilities and in so doing to support the ongoing care of the person in respect of whom care is being provided. Eligibility for Carer’s Allowance is not contingent on a particular disability or illness, the severity of disability or the age of the person being cared for.
The two principal conditions for receipt of Carer’s Allowance are that full time care and attention is required and provided, and that a means test is satisfied.
As set out in primary legislation, the person being cared for must be so incapacitated as to require full-time care and attention and be likely to require this full-time care and attention for at least 12 months. Full-time care and attention is defined as not less than 35 hours per week to a person in need of such care.
The payment continues to be made as long as both the carer and the care recipient satisfy the conditions for the scheme. The average duration on the Carer’s Allowance payment for those currently in payment just over 7 years.
With regard to those carers providing care for an extended period, I was very pleased that legislation to give effect to a number of important State Pension reforms was enacted last December. A key measure introduced under this legislation is enhanced State Pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependents for over 20 years. This reform was part of the Pensions Commission’s recommendations and is based on the recognition that someone caring for this period of time will face greater challenges in building up the eligibility criteria of 520 paid contributions required to qualify for State Pension (Contributory).Since January 2024, long-term carers contributions can be awarded to a person who has cared for an incapacitated person for a period of 20 years (1040 weeks) and these contributions can be used towards the calculation of their State Pension (Contributory) entitlement. This is done by attributing the equivalent of a paid contribution to long-term carers of incapacitated dependents to cover gaps in their contribution record. These long-term carers contributions will be treated the same as paid contributions for State Pension (Contributory) entitlement only and can, where there are gaps in paid contributions, be used to satisfy the minimum 520 qualifying contributions condition.For those people who have been caring for less than 20 years, they will continue to have access to the existing State Pension (Contributory) provisions of Homemaking Disregards and Homecaring periods, which provide for recognition of caring up to a maximum of 20 years, once that person has met the minimum requirement of 520 paid contributions.
I trust that this clarifies the issue for the Deputy.
165. Deputy Patricia Ryan asked the Minister for Social Protection if there are plans to include carer’s benefit and carer’s allowance as credited contributions for the purposes of pension entitlement calculation, as those caring are effectively doing a 35-hour week to the detriment of their being able to work outside the home; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30080/24]
View answerThis Government acknowledges the important role that carers play and is fully committed to supporting them in that role. Accordingly, once a person has met the minimum requirement of 520 paid contributions, the current State Pension (Contributory) system provides measures including PRSI credits, Homemaking Disregards and HomeCaring Periods to recognise caring periods of up to 20 years outside of paid employment in the calculation of a payment rate.
Despite these measures, some long-term carers of incapacitated dependents may still face barriers in accessing the State Pension (Contributory). They may, for example, have difficulty establishing the minimum number of 520 paid contributions.
I was very pleased that legislation to give effect to a number of important State Pension reforms was enacted last December. An key measure introduced under this legislation is enhanced State Pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependents for over 20 years.
Since January 2024, long-term carers contributions can be awarded to a person who has cared for an incapacitated person for a period of 20 years (1040 weeks) and these contributions can be used towards the calculation of their State Pension (Contributory) entitlement. This is done by attributing the equivalent of a paid contribution to long-term carers of incapacitated dependents to cover gaps in their contribution record. These long-term carers contributions will be treated the same as paid contributions for State Pension (Contributory) entitlement only and can, where there are gaps in paid contributions, be used to satisfy the minimum 520 qualifying contributions condition.
Where a person reaches State Pension age and does not satisfy the conditions to qualify for a State Pension (Contributory) or qualifies for less than the maximum rate, they may instead qualify for one of the following:
The State Pension (Non-Contributory) which is a means-tested payment (based on their share of household means) with a maximum payment of 95% of the State Pension (Contributory); or
An increase for a qualified adult (based on their own means), amounting up to 90% of a full rate State Pension (Contributory) where their spouse has a contributory pension; or
Where their spouse/civil partner is deceased, a widow’s/widower’s/civil partner’s contributory pension, which they may claim either based on their spouse’s or their own social insurance record. The qualifying conditions for this require fewer contributions paid (260) than the State Pension (Contributory) and the current maximum personal rate for those aged 66 or over is €277.30, i.e., the same as the maximum rate of the State Pension (Contributory), with allowances (notably the Living Alone Allowance) payable where applicable.
I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
166. Deputy Michael Creed asked the Minister for Social Protection when a person in County Cork (details supplied) will receive a decision on their disability allowance appeal. [30092/24]
View answerThe Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision making functions.
The Social Welfare Appeals Office has advised me that an appeal by the person concerned was registered in that office on 20 March 2024. It is a statutory requirement of the appeals process that the relevant papers and comments by or on behalf of the Deciding Officer on the grounds of appeal be sought from the Department of Social Protection. These papers were received in the Social Welfare Appeals Office on 25 May 2024 and the case will now be referred to an Appeals Officer who will make a summary decision on the appeal based on documentary evidence presented or, if necessary, hold an oral hearing.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
167. Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne asked the Minister for Social Protection the reason a person (details supplied) has been unsuccessful in applying for disability allowance; if her Department will reconsider the application given the available evidence; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30124/24]
View answerDisability Allowance (DA) is a weekly allowance paid to people with a specified disability who are aged 16 or over and under the age of 66. This disability must be expected to last for at least one year and the allowance is subject to a medical assessment, means test and habitual residency conditions.
I confirm that my Department received an application for DA from the person concerned on 14 May 2023. A letter from his Specialist, dated 23 April 2024, was included with this person's application documentation. This letter was considered by the Medical Assessor when reviewing all the medical information provided by the person concerned.
Based on the evidence supplied in support of this person’s application, his application for DA was disallowed on the grounds that the medical qualifying conditions of DA were not satisfied. The person concerned was notified in writing of this decision and they were given the right to a review or an appeal.
To date, no request for a review or an appeal has been received by the person concerned nor has the Department received additional medical documentation, in support of his application, that would impact the original decision.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
168. Deputy Michael Creed asked the Minister for Social Protection if she expedite a decision on an application for a State pension (non-contributory) (details provided). [30142/24]
View answerState pension non-contributory is a means-tested payment for people aged 66 and over, habitually residing in the State, who do not qualify for a state pension contributory, or who only qualify for a reduced rate contributory pension based on their social insurance record.
An application for state pension non-contributory was received from the person concerned on 1 July 2024.
State pension non-contributory has been awarded with effect from 2 August 2024, the first Friday after the person concerned reaching pension age.
The person concerned was notified of this decision on 5 July 2024, setting out the reasons for the decision and their right, if dissatisfied with the decision, to request a review of the decision, or to appeal the decision to the Social Welfare Appeals Office. Additional documentation was also requested which should be provided within 14 days.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
