Louise O'Reilly
Question:355. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Social Protection the first year and full year cost of expanding the one parent family payment threshold by 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% respectively. [46594/26]
View answerThursday, 18 June 2026
Questions (355)
Written answers
The One-Parent Family Payment is a payment for lone parents, under 66, whose youngest child is under seven. There is no set payment threshold for One Parent Family Payment. Instead, an person's entitlement gradually reduces based on assessable means.
The means disregards for One-Parent Family Payment have three components:
The first €20,000 of capital is disregarded. The following formula is then applied when assessing the value of capital above this amount, as follows: next €10,000 = €1 per €1,000, next €10,000 = €2 per €1,000 and capital in excess of €40,000 = €4 per €1,000.
Income from employment and self-employment: the first €165 of weekly earnings is disregarded, with 50% of income above that amount also being disregarded.
A general disregard of the first €7.60 of weekly earnings is also applied.
Any changes to the One Parent Family Payment means tests would have to be considered in a budgetary context, within the scope of the overall resources available for welfare improvements and in conjunction with other social welfare schemes. Calculating the cost of the effects of changes to the means test requires complex analysis. Consequently, it is not possible to provide the costing requested by the Deputy.