Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 April 2024
47. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Social Protection if she has considered designing new initiatives to tackle under-claiming of benefits, which is widespread across her own Department and other agencies of Government. [18077/24]
View answerWith more than 90 separate schemes and services in my Department, which affect the lives of almost every person in the State, I am committed to ensuring that members of the public are aware of the supports and services available to them through my Department.Public information campaigns play an important role in helping to make people aware of their benefits, and all of our advertising campaigns ensure the best possible mix of media is used to effectively reach our target audience. In 2023, my Department ran a public information campaign on changes to the State Pension Contributory to inform long term carers know about their entitlements. The target audience for our national media and social media advertising campaign were people who have either cared for, or are currently caring for, a family member or loved one on a long-term basis. My Department also ran a public information campaign to raise awareness of the Fuel Allowance payment scheme from August to December 2023. The target audience was those on low income who may qualify for the scheme subject to the compliance requirements regarding thresholds and qualifying payments, with an emphasis on the over 70s.Meanwhile, a nationwide public information campaign to promote the Working Family Payment scheme took place last year to help increase awareness of the payment among working families on low to moderate income especially those who may not be aware that they qualified for the payment. There are plans to promote this scheme again to highlight the payment to working families this year. Officials from my Department also directly engage with stakeholders who represent lower paid, older and vulnerable communities. My Department's Customer Representative Forum, which meets quarterly, allows us to engage with around 30 organisations and NGOs around Ireland who represent vulnerable communities and older people. For more than 30 years my Department has hosted an annual Pre-Budget Forum where the community, voluntary sector and other stakeholders share their views on the measures that should be included in the upcoming budget. We also hold a post-Budget briefing to update groups on the key measures announced as part of the social welfare package. Meanwhile, we host a Social Inclusion forum every year where a wide variety of representative groups highlight issues of concern and discusses issues on schemes and entitlements. As part of our commitments under the National Carers’ Strategy, we host the Annual Carers' Forum to provides an opportunity for engagement between officials and people directly experiencing care issues.Intreo is a service from my department that offers a single point of contact for all employment and income supports. This includes providing information on all the income supports we provide including jobseeker’s payments, back to work and back to education payments, one-parent family payments and pensions.My Department also funds the Citizens Information Board (CIB), which is a statutory agency tasked with providing independent, impartial, confidential, and non-judgmental information, advice, money advice and advocacy. CIB also acts as a signpost for people including vulnerable groups and older people and provides information in local Citizens Information Centres and through the Citizens Information website as well as periodicals and publications.
