31,500 families missing out on welfare payments

MORE than 30,000 families are missing out on social welfare payments potentially worth over €170 million because they are unaware they qualify for them.

According to the most recent figures from the Department of Social and Family Affairs, just 18,500 families claim the Family Income Supplement (FIS), even though an estimated 50,000 are believed to qualify.

The supplement, a weekly tax-free payment, is designed to provide support for families with low earnings, the aim being to preserve the incentive to stay at work.

Families can get payments of between €20 and €400 a week, depending on their income and the size of their family. According to the department’s figures, the average weekly payment in June was €105, or €5,460 a year.

Based on that average figure, the 31,500 families not claiming the supplement are missing out on combined annual payments worth as much as €172m.

Labour TD Kathleen Lynch accused the department of failing to adequately promote the scheme in a “deliberate attempt to save money”.

“Tens of thousands of working families are being unfairly deprived of FIS payments to which they are fully entitled,” she said.

“The problem is that the Government is failing to inform people of their entitlements. As a result, tens of thousands of children are going without basics such as healthy food, school books and heat.”

However, Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan denied the Government was attempting to save money, saying every effort had been made to inform people of their entitlements.

“We have 900,000 [social welfare recipients] or so, and they are regularly written to and informed about the schemes available to them,” he told RTÉ radio.

His department also undertook a nationwide awareness campaign to promote the supplement, consisting of TV, radio and newspaper adverts.

During the campaign, the department provided a lo-call helpline for the public which received more than 2,800 calls.

In addition, the scheme was promoted on the department’s website, through its network of local offices and through Citizen Information Centres.

However, Ms Lynch said the awareness campaign was too brief.

“The department’s response to the low take-up rate has been to run a TV ad campaign, but the campaign only ran for a week. Most commercial campaigns run for months, not days. Blink and you would have missed it.”

Citing the department’s own figures, she added: “If there is any improvement, it is happening at a snail’s pace. In 2000, 31,274 children were benefiting from the scheme. At the end of 2005, that had only gone up to 33,956.”