Is lone parent colleague entitled to anything else

J

jamieb

Registered User
Messages
83
Hi

Trying to help out a colleauge. A one parent family earns just over 500eu per week full time. 8.30 to 5.30. Her little girl is in a full time creche which is over 800 per month and her rent is 900 per month. She gets back to work allowance which she is on the 2nd year 50per cent of one parent family allowance which will reduce in June. She does have a medical card also. Can she get help with rent at all?
 
What part of the country does she live in? A friend of mine living in dublin has been put onto a sceme with fingal county council. When she was on rent allowance with what she was earning she wasn't entitled to any housing benefit so in the end she had to give up her job. There's no way she could afford childcare, rent, bills ect with out some help, she was better off sitting on her bum at home and not working. But since she heard about this sceme ( i'm trying to think what it's called ) she was able to go back to work full time and still get help with her rent that meant she was actually better off working than not working ( about bloody time they thought of something ) From what she told me the only conditions of going onto this was that you have to of been on benefits for the past 2 years and if i'm correct your friend should have this since she is claiming back to work allowance. Getting normal rent allowance when you work is about as much use as a chocolate kettle, ( now bear in mind i'm not that up to date but from what i can remember.......) with normal rent allowance it's class as supplementry rent allowance which in plain language to you and me what i was told is that it's not a benefit as such it's sort of a help you out. So the second you start earning any money from anywhere you rent allowance is effected. Cause their such nice people ( haha ) they let you keep the first 50 euro i believe it's now gone up to 60 euro and then for every euro you earn after that they will take that euro away from your rent allowance. So unless your friend finds a childminded for 60 euro a week and works bascially for nothing the normal rent allowance isn't going to help her at all with what she's earning. It's not easy being a single parent been there and done that but fair play to her for working in the first place and i really hope she can manage to get some help by the sounds of it she doesnt have much money left over at the end of the month. I have no idea if the other councils have the same thing in place of not, would think it was a bit strange for 1 to have it and not the other, wouldn't make sense but not alot of things do. Still cant think of what it's actually called but if you need to know get back to me and i'll ask my friend what it's called.
 
Thanks Samanthajane, I was just talking to her this morning and I was saying to her that really speaking she would be better working 20 hours than 40. She is on a busy reception and doesnt get a minute, and by the time she gets home after picking up her daughter, the 2 of them are exhausted and therefore there is no quality time spent etc. Her Mum died in November so any support network at all has been taken away as now both her parents are dead. If you can get the name of this scheme thingy that would be great. She lives in Dublin but more Ballyroan area
 
I think that SamanthaJane is talking about the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) which is where landlords rent their properties to the local authority, who in turn rent the property to tenants. To qualify as a tenant, one must have been on Rent Supplement for 18 months - though this may vary depending on the quantity of properties available to the Local Authority.

Your friend should contact the local authority for Ballyroan for more information (Sth Dublin or Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, I'm not sure which).

Rent Supplement is means-tested on all of the income although there are some disregards for persons on back to work schemes (I just don't have the figures to hand at the moment). Has she told One Parent Family Section about the childcare costs? Did they take that into account when calculating her OPFP?
 
Hi Glipman

She is not on OPFA but would have been a few years ago before she took the full time job - she then went onto back to work allowance which is 75 pc of opfa and 50pc the second year and now in june it drops to 25pc which is 50euro so then her position worsens.
 
jamieb said:
Hi Glipman

She is not on OPFA but would have been a few years ago before she took the full time job - she then went onto back to work allowance which is 75 pc of opfa and 50pc the second year and now in june it drops to 25pc which is 50euro so then her position worsens.
Click to expand...

The BTWA is meant to help people get off a reliance on SW, hence the graduated reduction over the three years that it runs. If she had not availed of it she would not have retained her OPFP from day one as her earnign swould have been too high. I'm afraid there is little she can do.
 
I didn't realise you had to be in receipt of the rent allowance to go onto this scheme ( i can spell scheme now lol ) And neither did i realise that my friends landlord would have to sign up to the council for her to be able to do this as she never mentioned this to me. Sorry for the misinformation but i was close. So bascially your friend has no hope of getting any help. I also looked into FIS and with what she's earning from her wages and her one parent family she wouldn't qualify for that either. This really bugs me that still the irish goverment has made next too no attempts to help single parents get back to work and also help to keep them in work. I suspect the only reason your friend is managing is because she kept 50% of her loan parents and that will drop to 25% and then to 0 the year after. If you friend went down to 20 hours per week i think she would be better of, She should still keep her loan parents not all of it but it wont be percentage based. she can earn 148.50 and then for every euro she earns over this 50cent will get taken away, also she would then qualify for FIS and also for rent allowance. How crazy is that, that to make things work for her she has to drop hours and claim more benefits. If the goverment just changed things and even helped out a little bit with rent or childcare they would save more money over the long run. It's proven that the goverment would save money if they did this so why haven't they done anything about it. More and more people will need help with the way our economy is at the moment i would of thought it would be at the top of their list to save money in as many places as they can.

Sorry where i put the one parent family i meant the back to work allowance
 
Hi Thanks Samantha jane for your help. And Welfarite could I ask you a question. I understand that the graduated payment in btwa is for the reason of inching people off benefits and Im sure that was her intention at the time, however things have taken a bit of turn with her mum dying etc so is it possible for her to return to opfa at any time in the future? Thanks
 
Of course she can. The only thing stopping her from doing so at the end of her BTEA is her earnings, not the fact she is on BTWA. She might consider reducing her hours to, say, 20 a week, after BTWA finishes. Then she could claim OPFP and possibly FIS.
 
Thanks Welfarite

She is actually considering doing this before it finishes to be honest. 880 euro a month in creche fees wipes out almost half her salary.

I have been showing her the advice here given so she has some idea. She is considering asking the company about reducing her hours however she doesnt know whether they will agree or not first of all and then there is the issue of back to work allowance, does this stop automatically if she did reduce and what then is her course of action? Thanks
 
BTWA remains payable, AFAIK, if hours are reduced as long as they are not less than 20 per week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top