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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 28 Nov 1972

Vol. 264 No. 1

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Welfare Benefit Qualifications.

47.

asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will take steps to simplify the qualifications for people who have applied for allowances under the various social service schemes.

It would be unreasonable to expect that social welfare benefits could be provided without a detailed and precise set of conditions governing eligibility for each particular benefit.

I do not think the rules applying to any one benefit are unduly complicated. Any explanation needed may readily be obtained from my Department, which maintains an information section and provides explanatory leaflets dealing with the various benefits as well as the comprehensive information booklet Summary of Social Insurance and Assistance Services. In addition officers of my Department may be consulted locally.

Is the Minister aware that the regulations, especially in the case of non-contributory widows and old age pensions, are so complicated that people are just unable to understand the position? On a number of occasions people, many of them poor people, have been refused allowances because there was an apple tree in the back garden, or they lived with parents or some other relative or because, as happened in one case, they went picking cockles. This is the kind of unnecessary red tape that should be cut away altogether. Should we not be moving towards a position in which the distinction between contributory and non-contributory will be done away with altogether?

The Deputy is talking about the means test, not about the regulations.

The means test, especially in relation to benefits in kind.

The officer must assess the means in each case.

Would the Minister not agree that, when it comes to benefit in kind, the sort of benefit a person is alleged to derive from living with a relation, that raises all sorts of unnecessary complications for an applicant? Most of the people involved are poor people.

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