Vol. 440 No. 6
77 Mr. N. Ahern asked the Minister for Social Welfare the entitlements to disability benefit of persons on contributory widow's pension; if entitlement ends after 15 months; if the situation is different for those who are a long time on disability benefit; if so, the number of widows in this category; and the reason more recent claimants are treated differently.
Because its primary objective is to provide income support in the event of certain prescribed needs, the social welfare system does not usually facilitate weekly payment under two separate schemes simultaneously. Given their special circumstances, an exception was traditionally made in the case of recipients of widow's contributory pension, lone parent's allowance and other similar payments. Prior to 1988, in certain circumstances and subject to the usual qualifying conditions, widows could qualify for unemployment benefit or unrestricted disability benefit in addition to their pension or allowance. Benefit in such cases was paid at half of the present rate of unemployment benefit or disability benefit.
Given the need to direct scarce resources where need was greatest, the payment of additional half-rate disability benefit for widows and other lone parents was discontinued, for new claimants only, from January 1988. Anyone who was in receipt of disability benefit at that time did not lose their entitlement and continued to qualify for half-rate disability benefit provided that they continued to be medically unfit for work. Following a review of this measure the half-rate payment was restored from April 1990 and is now paid for a maximum of 15 months in respect of new claimants after that date. A person who has been paid disability benefit for the maximum period can requalify for a further 15 months on payment of a further 13 PRSI contributions.
The information on the number of recipients is not collected in the form requested by the Deputy. However, there are currently some 1,500 lone parents and widows in receipt of half-rate, long term and short term payments.
