The social welfare income maintenance system is a contingency based system. To qualify for payment, a person must experience one of a range of defined contingencies, such as sickness, unemployment, old age, widowhood, etc.
However, it can happen that a person may experience more than one contingency at the same time. For instance, an unemployed person may also be sick. Accordingly, there is a general rule whereby a person who is entitled to more than one income maintenance payment at any one time, can only receive one of those payments.
However, there are exceptions to this rule. A person in receipt of a blind person's pension may receive disability benefit, unemployment benefit, health and safety benefit, widow or widower's pension, or one-parent family payment in addition to the main payment. In total just over 400 persons in receipt of blind person's pension are receiving an additional payment. Once a person reaches 66 years of age only one payment may be made.
The issues surrounding the making of other payments in addition to the blind person's pension are being considered in the context of a review of disability payments generally which will be completed early in 2003. Changes to the current arrangements will be considered in the light of the conclusions of that review.