Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 13 Nov 1985

Vol. 109 No. 12

Adjournment Matter. - Prescribed Relative Allowance Scheme.

Mr. J. Higgins

Senator Ryan began his concluding statement by pointing out that the numerical insignificance of travellers meant that they had very little political clout and consequently that very few people thought it worth their while to come into the House tonight to defend travellers' rights. In other words, the time allocated to this debate and this motion, three hours, was not fully utilised. The group of people I represent in my contribution tonight is numerically far less significant than the travellers referred to by Senator Ryan. The reason I have sought permission to raise this issue in the house has been the operation and administration of the prescribed relative allowance scheme which, in my opinion, particularly in view of recent developments, is a real cause for anxiety.

If one looks at the figures one sees that in March 1983, 2,640 people were in receipt of the prescribed relative allowance; in March 1984, 2,500 people were in receipt of the benefit and presently 2,300 qualify. Therefore, it can be concluded that in a two-year period over 340 people have been cut off from benefit. This is only the tip of the iceberg. This number I believe should be far greater judging by the number of cases currently under appeal and the people who come to public representatives on an almost daily basis to make legitimate representations on their behalf. I have sought permission to raise the issue because of the high incidence of people who are first-time applicants for the benefit and who are having their applications turned down.

Equally disturbing, as I have stated, is the fact that people who have been deemed eligible in the past for the allowance are being disallowed on an ever-increasing basis. Form S.W. 41 is the form which one avails of in order to apply for the allowance. It sets out clearly the particular conditions which pertain to the allowance. The difficulties arise particularly in relation to condition no.2 which states that the incapacitated person must be so incapacitated as to need full time care and attention and be receiving this care and attention from a prescribed relative. This sounds a very reasonable clause and condition, but what happens when you have an incapacitated person whose son or daughter has land? From the way the scheme is being operated in County Mayo, it would seem that any small farmer who is working on his land to even a limited degree is deemed as being outside the scope of the scheme. Even carrying on a limited operation is taken as evidence that the prescribed relative is not devoting full time care and attention to looking after the pensioner in question.

It is ridiculous to expect that a small farmer whose father or mother becomes incapacitated should dispose of his land, either by selling, letting or leasing it, in order to qualify for the allowance. It is not reasonable to expect that somebody who has a small farm is quite capable of carrying on the two operations in tandem or indeed carrying on a limited farm function while at the same time devoting the most of his time to looking after his aged or incapacitated parent or parents as the case may be? Surely it is nonsensical to suggest that on small farms — and people know from the structure of farms in rural areas that the house is within walking distance, and in some cases within shouting distance — it is not possible for a son or a daughter or a prescribed relative to carry on having a few dry stock grazing the land and at the same time adequately to cater for the needs of the parent in question?

I am not aware of the reason for this clamp-down at this time. It is a scheme that was operated with a fair degree of basic "cop-on" until now. There was a fair element of commonsense used by the Department of Social Welfare officers in determining eligibility. People have a grasp of the type of operation which exists on most small farms in the west. There has been a clamp-down that seems not coincidental in that it comes hard on the heels of the campaign in relation to small farmers' dole. I get the impression, in relation to the operation of some schemes in rural areas, that there is a hell-bent determination within the Department to bring small farmers in general in the west to their knees. It happened in relation to the small farmers' dole in the early days; it is happening in relation to this scheme and again in relation to farmers who are cut off from disability benefit and while their cases are under appeal, apply for supplementary welfare benefit to health boards. Technically, the implications of the term "full-time care and attention" is that the prescribed relative could not even go to Mass on Sunday, could not leave the home to go shopping, could not take time off from their duties in order to draw the pension on behalf of the applicant. Thankfully, there has been enough "cop-on" there not to insist on such rigid interpretation and adherence. Why therefore is the small farmer who spends the bulk of the day looking after an incapacitated parent expected to forfeit the princely sum of £25? This is wrong and I should like to get answers from the Minister of State in relation to this.

In the majority of cases the farmers who stay at home to look after aged parents on farms do so at considerable personal sacrifice to themselves; there may be other members of the family away in secure employment elsewhere. I have evidence of cases where farmers have had to pay people to do the chores for them in order that they themselves could look after parents and then they find that they have been turned down for the allowance. I have come across cases where farmers have ceased to sign the live register because they are no longer available for work outside the farm due to the increased pressure of the domestic requirements of looking after a parent or parents and they have been turned down. I ask the Minister of State to use whatever influence he has in his Department to go back to the previous understanding — a flexible and compassionate application of the guidelines.

In view of the fact that my time has not been fully utilised, I request that Senator John Connor be granted the balance of it.

Mr. Connor

I thank Senator Higgins for granting me some of his time. Much of what I would like to say on this subject has already been covered. The Senator and I have discussed this problem together and it arises because of a number of incidents we have come across in our constituency work when people are suddenly, for some strange reason, deprived of their prescribed relative's allowance. Senator Higgins has outlined how it operates and the general guidelines which were adopted by the Department and its officials in administering the scheme. There are many people who for ten years and longer were in receipt of a prescribed relative allowance and suddenly this year, because of new guidelines emanating from the Department of Social Welfare, it was decided to re-examine their circumstances — for instance, the length of time that is spent in full time care and attention. I cannot understand why a new interpretation is put on the circumstances of somebody who for ten years looked after an aged parent or parents, and was deemed to be within the regulations so that he or she is now suddenly found not to be devoting the prescribed amount of time to the parent and this even in view of the fact that in the last 12 years there has been major machanisation, even of small farms, which would have released many people from actual work on the smallholding itself.

Also there is the aspect that the payment of the prescribed relative allowance gave some form of recompense to a son, daughter or other prescribed relative who would look after elderly parents in their homes rather than have them looked after in institutions. The amount of money offered to these people is £25 maximum — a pittance nowadays. There are many hundreds of people looked after in their homes because this allowance was payable. It was always very restricted in the range of people it was paid to, and the amount of money paid. I would like the Minister to tell us what the new guidelines are and how they are arrived at. Would he set down for us the length of time the Department demands a prescribed relative must be in attendance in the home with the aged relative to quality for the scheme? If the amount of time hitherto given was acceptable for ten years, or whatever length of time the scheme has been in operation, why the change now? We did not hear of new guidelines being laid down in this House during the Social Welfare Bill or any other related legislation. I believe that this is something else which may be wrong about the administration of social welfare; it may be somebody down the line who has decided, probably without proper ministerial permission, that the amount of time formerly given to the aged parent no longer is sufficient to qualify, according to the interpretation of a particular officer. We have had this sort of thing also in the way certain officers interpretated regulations under the small farmers' assistance, as referred to by my colleague, Senator Higgins. A major injustice has been done to hundreds and possibly more people throughout the country through the interpretation of those rules. Many of those officers have no idea about assessing a small farmer's income. In their interviews with people they do not allow them all their allowable expenses; they do not advice them etc. It is from that school of thought I fear that this new campaign against this prescribed relative allowance has emerged.

I want to thank Senator Higgins for allowing me some of his time and I would hope that the Minister, in his reply, have something of a positive and satisfactory answer for us.

Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare (Mr. Pattison)

The prescribed relative allowance is an increase in pension payable to incapacitated old age and invalidity pensioners in respect of a prescribed relative who is living with them and is providing full time care and attention to them. Payment of the allowance depends on certain specific conditions being met. These conditions are set out in regulations made under the Social Welfare Acts and deciding officers must satisfy themselves that these conditions are fulfilled before an allowance is awarded in any case. As with social welfare payments generally, every person who is dissatisfied with the decision of a deciding officer has the right of appeal to an Appeals Officer.

It would be helpful to give some history of the scheme at this stage. The prescribed relative allowance was introduced in January 1969. At that stage it was confined to cases where a qualified pensioner was being cared for on a full-time basis by a daughter or step-daughter who actually gave up long-standing insurable employment in order to provide that care. The test applied for this purpose required the daughter or step-daughter to have at least 156 employment contributions in the five years preceding the claim. This particular condition was however subsequently abolished and the scheme has been otherwise expanded by widening the categories of pensioners covered and by extending the definition of prescribed relative. Nevertheless the conditions are still quite specific and I think it as well to set out briefly what these conditions are.

There are, in effect, two sets of conditions to be fulfilled, one set applying to the pensioner and another set to the prescribed relative.

In the case of the pensioner, he or she must be receiving an old age pension, a blind person's pension, an invalidity pension or be over 66 years and receiving a widow's pension, retirement pension, deserted wife's benefit, deserted wife's allowance or prisoner's wife's allowance from the Department of Social Welfare. He or she must be so incapacitated as to require full-time care and attention; and he or she must be receiving full-time care and attention from a prescribed relative who is residing with him or her for that purpose. Apart from the prescribed relative, he or she must be living alone or only with children under 18 or persons aged 18 or over who are mentally or physically incapacitated.

In the case of the prescribed relative, he or she must not be engaged in employment outside the home; he or she must not be entitled to any other benefit, pension or allowance from the Department of Social Welfare; and he or she must not be a married person who is maintained by his or her spouse.

These conditions are, as I have said already, very specific. Effectively, they restrict payment of the allowance to pensioners who require and are receiving full-time care and attention from a prescribed relative who, in turn and to all intents and purpose, has no other means of support.

It is important to be clear about the actual conditions which apply in this scheme and to avoid any misapprehension on this score.

The allowance does not apply, for example, where an incapacitated pensioner is being cared for by a relative who is maintained by his or her spouse; neither is it payable where the relative is employed outside the home or is unable for any reason, to provide the full-time care and attention required. The important thing to note is that the allowance serves a very specific purpose, namely, to provide a measure of income maintenance to households where there is need to provide a pensioner with full-time care and attention and a relative is devoting his or her energies to that end to the exclusion of gainful activity.

There are approximately 2,300 prescribed relative allowances currently in payment. The majority of these are in payment to recipients of non-contributory pensions, a large proportion of whom would be self-employed persons, including farmers. The proportion of non-contributory pensioners who qualify for this allowance is much greater than for contributory pensioners with non-contributory pensioners accounting for some 75 per cent of the total.

Non-contributory pensioners are composed to a large extent, as I have said, of the self-employed, including farmers, and a large proportion of farmers will have relatives living with them. In many cases these relatives will be engaged in running the farm, particularly where the farmer himself is an old person and not in a position to do so. When an application for a prescribed relative allowance is made the deciding officer must establish whether the relative is in actual fact providing full-time care and attention to an incapacitated pensioner or whether he or she is not. I know from my own experience and fully appreciate that any family who has a pensioner residing with them will feel that they should be entitled to an allowance for doing so, but as matters stand the scheme is a limited one which applies only in the circumstances which I have outlined.

The relative of a non-contributory pensioner may be gainfully occupied in or around the home without necessarily being disqualified for payment of the prescribed relative allowance. The allowance is being, and will continue to be, paid in cases where the prescribed relative is running a smallholding provided this does not conflict with the objective of providing full-time care and attention for the pensioner. Where the level of activity is such, however, that the relative could not reasonably be in a position to provide the required care and attention on a full-time basis, a prescribed relative allowance cannot be paid. The fact that, in real terms, four times as many non-contributory pensioners qualify for the allowance than contributory pensioners is a measure of the extent to which the allowance is paid to pensioners whose prescribed relatives are living with them on small farms.

Routine reviews of continuing entitlement to the allowance is an ongoing feature of the administration of the scheme. These are conducted by social welfare officers who report on all the relevant circumstances of the case. Where the relative is gainfully occupied around the house, information on the extent of this activity is furnished in order that the deciding officer will be in a position to decide whether the relative is providing full-time care and attention. These reviews are not confined to any category of recipient. They include all pensioners who are in receipt of the allowance. The same criteria apply in all cases and each case is decided on its merits having regard to all relevant circumstances.

It is clear, therefore, that smallholders are not ruled out for the purposes of the scheme. The prescribed relative allowance is in payment in many instances where a pensioner is being cared for by a relative who is a smallholder. The crucial factor is whether the farming commitments are consistent with the ability of the relative to provide full-time care and attention.

The prescribed relative allowance scheme is a limited one. We could have a long debate on whether the scheme could be expanded and so on, but this question is dealing with the scheme as it stands. It is a limited one. The role of the allowance is being reviewed as part of the general review of services which is being conducted by the Commission on Social Welfare. Any proposals which the commission puts forward in this area will be fully and carefully examined.

The Seanad adjourned at 8.05 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 14 November 1985.