In-work benefit extended to families with one working parent

Social solidarity minister Michael Farrugia has announced that the government will be extending its in-work benefit system into 2016.

Under the latest budgetary measure, the in-work benefit will be extended to families with one working parent who earns between €6,600 and €12,700.

The benefit will reach a maximum of €150 per child and it will benefit some 3,700 families and 5,000 children.

Farrugia said that the benefit was a measure under the 2015 budget and that the total number of people who had received the benefit by the end of September was 1,269.

He further explained that the benefits for single parents and for families with a joint income would also continue to next year under the same criteria as before.

“Couples who are both in employment whose combined income is between €10,000 and €20,400 and for single parents whose annual income is between €6,600 and €15,000,” Farrugia said, adding that the benefit would be open to all those who have children under the age of 23.

Farrugia said that the maximum capping for families with 2 working parents was €1,000 per child, €1,200 per child for single parents, and that the maximum for one working parent families was set at €150.

“The maximum is lower in this case purposely to encourage more people to get into the workforce,” Farrugia said, stressing that the initiatives had all been aimed to push people away from poverty and social exclusion.

Farrugia added that between January and March, there were 589 single parents who received a total of €138,129, which rose to 733 single parents, receiving a total of €210,602 between April and June.

“The number of parents who both have jobs and benefitted from the scheme rose from 350, receiving a total of €105,548 between January and March, to 510, receiving a total of €202,140 between April and June.”

Minister defends planned ‘disability hub’

Farrugia has defended government plans for a €12 million project to create a hub for persons with disability.

Asked about the former KNPD chairman Joseph Camilleri’s criticism of the plan, Farrugia said that he didn’t think that Camilleri had “understood what the hub actually is.”

“The hub will include private residences, commercial spaces and a respite and day care centre and it came in response to requests from NGOs about the lack of meeting space available,” Farrugia said.

Camilleri had  heavily criticised the project as “segregation by stealth” and insisted that it humiliated intellectually disabled people who have the same ambitions as their peers to satisfy the needs of their parents.

He added that the main function of the hub would be to provide NGOs with a space of their own while giving them and their families a place to interact socially.