MINISTER FOR SOCIAL Protection Heather Humphreys has said some 5,000 asylum seekers have had their daily allowance payment cut since May of this year. 

The axing of the €38.80 weekly payment for some asylum seekers was implemented by the Minister in May following a recommendation by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

An audit by the spending watchdog from 2022 to 2023 found that the Department of Social Protection was not means testing claimants as required by legislation.

Following the recommendation in May, the Department began means-testing the payment given to international protection seekers, with anyone working and earning more than €120 a week seeing their payment reduced. 

Speaking to reporters today in Dublin, Minister Humphreys was asked why means-testing was only introduced ahead of the local and European elections in June of this year. 

Minister Humphreys pointed to the pandemic and the arrival of tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in Ireland in 2022 as reasons the Department failed to introduce the means testing earlier. 

“There was a lot going on…Once it was brought to my attention by my officials,  I signed the regulations immediately and then the payments were stopped,” she said.

“And since then 5000, payments have been stopped. And we continue to means test it.”

She added that the main people impacted by the introduction of means testing are those living in state provided accommodation who are in full-time employment.

At the time the means test was introduced, Chief Executive of the migrant rights centre Nasc, Fiona Hurley, warned that the measure would impact those already living in poverty.

“We know that the rates of poverty amongst people living in Direct Provision are quite high, and people may not realise that people living in Direct Provision don’t receive Child Allowance so this cut to payments will have a very significant impact on families,” she told RTÉ.

With reporting from Ayush Pandey