Éamon Ó Cuív Challenges Means Testing of Rural Social Scheme
Éamon Ó Cuív criticised means testing across social welfare schemes and questioned whether payments under the Rural Social Scheme, Community Employment and TUSC provide a fair incentive. He argued that means testing penalises small self-employed incomes and farmers and called for a review and meetings with the minister to seek improvements.
Main criticisms
He said the social welfare means testing system can be more penal than the tax system. He highlighted that most working-age means-tested payments (apart from disability allowance) treat savings over €40,000 as if they generated 20% annual income. He contrasted that treatment with how small self-employed incomes and farm incomes are offset against jobseeker supports and asked whether that is fair compared with higher earners.
Scheme payment mechanics
He set out the payment structure for Community Employment, the Rural Social Scheme (RSS) and TUSC as described in replies: participant rates are based on the underlying social protection payment plus an additional €22.50 per week, with a minimum payment of €225.50 per week. Additional payments may be available for qualified dependents depending on household composition and means.
Hours, work and income realities
He noted RSS participants work 19.5 hours per week on a farm- or fisher-friendly schedule so participation should not adversely affect normal farming or fishing activity. RSS participants often have other self-employment income as farmers or fishermen, and participants may pursue additional employment outside scheme hours.
Calls for review and meeting with the minister
He pressed the minister on the fairness of means-testing rules - for example, that self-employed earnings can be deducted at 100% from jobseeker payments and farm income is often offset at 70% - and asked for a fairer system for small self-employed incomes and farms. The minister offered to meet and review possible improvements; the deputy welcomed that response and asked for a detailed discussion of the scheme's original purpose as a supplementary income for farmers who deliver local services.
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Minister, since I went to the west of Ireland many, many years ago and found out about the means testing system, I have to say that I have to say that I have always believed it is penal and we often talk about how the tax system can act as a disincentive to work our savings but I think it is fair to admit too that there is so that the social welfare system actually does that more. I am going to give you one example. For example, for most working age means tested payments with the exception of disability allowance, and we will talk about that under question 28, any income or any savings over €40,000 are considered as if they generated an income of 20 per cent per annum. Thanks Deputy Minister. Thank you Deputy for raising this matter. I understand that your question is seeking my views on whether the weekly payment rates for schemes such as Community Employment, Rural Social Scheme and TUSC represent a fair and adequate incentive to a married person to participate in the schemes. My department provides a range of social employment and training programmes that are targeted at long term unemployed job seekers and those most distant from the labour market. These supports include the Community Employment, TUSC and the Rural Social Scheme. The Rural Social Scheme provides local employment opportunities for low income farmers and fishermen. I know that Deputy O'Keefe is very familiar with the Rural Social and TUSC schemes as you designed them. You introduced them and you introduced them as Minister for Community Rural and Gaelthugt Affairs. I commend you on that initiative and I am very aware of the benefits of these schemes and the benefits they bring to communities throughout Ireland and indeed in particular our rural communities. The respective aims of Community Employment Programme and the Rural Social and TUSC schemes are to enhance the employability of disadvantaged and unemployed people by providing work experience and training opportunities for participants. The payment rates for participants on these schemes are based on the underlying value of their social protection payment plus an additional payment of €22.50 per week with a minimum payment to each participant of €225.50 per week. In addition, a participant may be eligible for additional weekly payments in respect of any qualified dependent household and each dependent child depending on the household composition and means. Rural Social Scheme participants work 19.5 hours per week and the agreed hours are based on a farm or fisher friendly schedule and this is to ensure that participation on the scheme does not adversely affect normal farming or fishing activity. Participants participating on employment support schemes such as CE and RSS also provides participants with an opportunity to pursue additional employment outside of the 19.5 hours required of the schemes. In the case of the Rural Social Scheme in particular, it should be noted that scheme participants have other income from self-employment as farmers or fishermen. Thanks Minister Deputy. Minister, I think if you look at question 25, you will see that it covers all means testing of social welfare schemes, community employment schemes and the RSS scheme. So Minister, I presume you are aware that if you are on, for example, job seekers allowance and you have a self-employed income other than farming, they means test that self-employed income at 100%. In other words, if you earn 30 euro a week self-employed, you will lose 30 euro a week from your job seekers allowance. And then in the case of farmers, with the exception of the environmental schemes, for every 100 euros you earn, they take 70 euros back. Now the top tax earners in the country are not penalised like that. Minister, can I ask you, do you think that is fair? And is it about time that we looked at this again and brought in a much fairer system for people who have small self-employed incomes and farms? Thank you. Deputy, I am happy to sit down with you and talk to you about these particular schemes. They are good schemes and can I say that if we do need to make improvements, I want to hear about them. And I will sit down with you and my officials to take a look at this because I want, you know, the system to, you know, to help people. And I want it to be fair and I don't want to see people, you know, disadvantaged. And we want to see that it is equitable. So I'm happy to sit down with you over, you know, in the time ahead and hear how you feel it can be improved upon. Open door for you, Deputy. I'd like to thank the Minister for the very positive response. Now, Minister, in your standard reply, you implied that the RSS is an activation scheme to help people get employment. That's certainly the way, not the way the scheme was designed. The scheme was designed as a supplementary income scheme in return for a huge contribution to services in local parishes up and down the country by small farmers. To supplement their income. And it has been very successful in that. Now, up until John Burton became Minister of Social Protection, people on the RSS scheme were entitled to the full basic entitlement. In other words, there was no penalty for having a farm because by definition all of them had a farm. Now, we have a situation that we expect people to give 19 and a half hours work per week for the generous sum of €22.50. Now, this is not an activation scheme, it's a work scheme. Do you think that a rate of just over €1 an hour is recompense for the high quality work being done by these workers? And will you also talk to me about this when we have our meeting? Because I'd like to go through it and the idea of this scheme and why it definitely was not an activation scheme, it was a work scheme in return for an income. Another door for your minister. Thank you. Well, Deputy, you and I have worked on a number of issues in the past and we got very, very satisfactory resolutions. So, I'm very happy to sit down and go through these schemes with you because I'm sure that you'll be able to give me some really valuable information. And as I said, I want to work with people, you know, to look at things and to improve them where we can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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