Written Answers. - Social Welfare Payments. Tuesday, 12 November 2002

Dáil Eireann Debate Vol. 557 No. 1 Page of 301

  488.  Dr. Upton      asked the Minister for Social and Family Affairs      further to Parliamentary Question No. 1680 of 9 October 2002, the number of pensioners and other claimants who avail of the electronic transfer fund; and if these payments will be aligned with all weekly payments. [21658/02]

Minister for Social and Family Affairs (Mary Coughlan):    The number of beneficiaries receiving their payments by means of electronic fund transfer, EFT, stands at 360,000. The EFT payment frequency is aligned with other payment methods in the case of child benefit, 154,000, and also in the case of beneficiaries receiving payments under a variety of schemes which are short-term in nature, 94,000. In the case of beneficiaries receiving pensions and similar payments of a long-term nature the EFT payment to some 92,000 is made two weeks in arrears and in the case of the remaining 20,000 it is one week in arrears. When payment by EFT was introduced [300] for long-term payments in 1993, payment was made four week in arrears.

I intend to make further progress on aligning the payment frequency in these cases during 2003.

	No. on EFT	EFT Compared to other Payment Methods
PSO Schemes:	92,176	2 weeks in arrears
Longford Schemes:
Disability Allowance	10,308	1 week in arrears
Invalidity	9,278	1 week in arrears
Carers Allowance	1,147	1 week in arrears
Total	20,733	1 week in arrears
Carers Benefit	326	aligned
Maternity	7,838	aligned
ISTS (excluding Longford)
DG	10,261	aligned
UB	25,288	aligned
UA	12,603	aligned
S/H and FA	1,684	aligned
SWA	8,930	aligned
BTW (ISTS)	22,277	aligned
PRETA	1,426	aligned
BTW (pen live)	2,895	aligned
Total	93,528	weekly aligned
CTBO
CB	154,053	monthly aligned
Overall Total	360,490

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Last Updated: 10/09/2010 17:41:05

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