Supplementary Welfare Allowance

Rules

If you have no income, you may be entitled to the basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance. If your weekly income is below the Supplementary Welfare Allowance rate for your family size, a payment may be made to bring your income up to the appropriate Supplementary Welfare Allowance rate. If you have claimed a social welfare benefit or pension but it has not yet been paid and you have no other income, you may qualify for Supplementary Welfare Allowance while you are waiting for your payment.

Supplementary Welfare Allowance is not a taxable source of income.

Conditions

You will normally qualify for Supplementary Welfare Allowance if you satisfy the following conditions:

• You are living in the State.
• You satisfy the means test.
• You have applied for any other benefit or allowance you may be entitled to.
• You satisfy the habitual residence test, except for an Exceptional Needs Payment. EU/EEA workers and Swiss nationals working here will satisfy the habitual residence condition. However, people from the EU/EEA or Switzerland who move to Ireland in search of employment are subject to the habitual residence test in the normal way while looking for work.
• You have registered for work with FÁS if you are of working age.

You will not normally qualify for Supplementary Welfare Allowance if you are:

• In full-time work, that is, working for more than 30 hours per week*.
• In full-time education.
• Involved in a trade dispute. However, you may claim Supplementary Welfare Allowance for your dependants.

* This condition does not apply to your spouse, civil partner or cohabitant. However any income they have from work is taken into account in the means test.

Means test

The main items taken into account for the means test include:

All cash income: including most social welfare and Health Service Executive payments, except Child Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance and Blind Welfare Allowance. This also includes all financial compensation except compensation awarded by a court to people who contracted Hepatitis C through the use of Human Immunoglobulin-Anti-D or through receiving blood products or blood transfusions in Ireland, the Hepatitis C and HIV Compensation Tribunals, the Residential Institutions Redress Board, or for disability caused by use of the drug Thalidomide.

From June 2007, Guardian's Payment (Contributory), Guardian's Payment (Non-Contributory) and the Respite Care Grant are not taken into account in the means test for Supplementary Welfare Allowance.

Rehabilitative employment: Up to €120 from rehabilitative employment is disregarded.

The value of any benefit or privilege: If you are 24 years of age or under and and you are living with a parent or a step-parent in the family home, some of your parents' income will also be taken into account in the assessment for Supplementary Welfare Allowance. The Department of Social Protection calls this an assessment of the 'benefit and privilege' you get from living with your parents. Find out how benefit and privilege is assessed in the means test.

The value of investments, savings or property (but not the value of your own home) is calculated as follows:

If you are married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting your total income is added together in the means test.

Repayment of Supplementary Welfare Allowance

In certain circumstances, you may have to repay any assistance you have received under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance Scheme. For example:

If Supplementary Welfare Allowance is paid while you are waiting for a social welfare benefit, assistance or pension, the amount paid will be deducted from the arrears of your social welfare payment.

If you are paid an Urgent Needs Payment, you may have to pay back all or part of what you have been paid if you are working or once an insurance claim is settled.