85. Deputy Eoin Hayes asked the Minister for Social Protection the estimated cost of increasing the income disregards by €1 in each of the social insurance schemes where income disregards are applicable as part of the means testing process, in tabular form. [67367/26]

Entitlement to social insurance payments is based on a person's social insurance record, the personal rate of payment is not subject to a means test. A means test is only applied if a claim includes an increase for a qualified dependant. Only the spouse or partner of the claimant is means tested.

Statutory Instrument 142 of 2007, the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) Regulations, as amended, sets out the income limit for the payment of social assistance schemes.

For social assistance schemes, all income and capital (such as savings, investments, and property other than the family home) belonging to the claimant and his or her spouse/partner, where applicable, are assessable for means assessment purposes.

A certain amount of income and capital may be excluded in the means assessment. For example schemes may have an earnings disregard. The level of income disregarded, and method of calculating weekly means, depends on the nature and policy objectives of a particular scheme.

With over 140 schemes and services, many of which are means-tested, estimating the cost of increasing income disregards by €1 is a complex and detailed task - that analysis is not currently available to my department, as such changes are considered on a scheme-by-scheme basis taking account of the wider policy and budgetary context.