On 26 October, I announced that the Christmas bonus for 2003 will again be paid at a rate equivalent to 100% of the person's normal weekly payment, with a minimum payment of €30. The cost of this measure is estimated to be €115.63 million. Payment of the bonus has been made during the past week and it is estimated that it has benefited 1.23 million persons, comprising 805,000 recipients and an estimated 421,000 dependants.
The bonus was paid, as in previous years, to recipients of all long-term social welfare payments, including retirement and old age pensioners, widow's, widower's and one-parent families, carer's allowance, invalidity pension and disability allowance recipients, persons in receipt of farm assist and employment support payments.
The focus of the Christmas bonus has always been on long-term welfare payment recipients, who rely on the social welfare system for financial support over the long-term. Recipients of short-term payments such as maternity benefit, carer's benefit or disability benefit do not qualify for the Christmas bonus. It is open to persons who have been in receipt of disability benefit for at least one year to be assessed for entitlement to invalidity pension. The Christmas bonus is applicable to invalidity pension.
There are no plans to extend entitlement to the bonus payment to the short-term schemes and any such extension could only be considered in a budgetary context having regard to the resources available and the significant cost which would be involved.