Disability allowance is a weekly allowance paid to people with a disability who are aged between 16 and 66. The disability must be expected to last for at least one year. The allowance is subject to both medical suitability and a means test. However, under social welfare legislation payment may be made to a person other than the claimant where this is requested or appropriate in certain circumstances. Such persons are appointed to act as agents to, inter alia, collect payments on behalf of a claimant. Agents are appointed where a person is unable to cash their payment due to serious illness or loss of mobility. They may also be appointed in cases where a person is permanently unable to act for themselves or discharge responsibility generally due to severe mental incapacity. In many cases parents, guardians or other family members are appointed as agents.
The issue of how much a person in residential care or community housing should contribute to the cost of their care and maintenance is primarily a matter for the health service and the service provider.
It would seem reasonable that those receiving publicly-funded long-term care should make some contribution towards upkeep and maintenance if they can afford to do so, just as they would if they were living in the community. Under the nursing home subvention regulations 1993, a person in full time residential care must be allowed to retain an amount equivalent to one fifth of the amount of the old age non-contributory pension as a personal income.
Budget 2003 provided for the take-over by my Department of the discretionary pocket money allowances paid to people with disabilities in residential care who are not entitled to disability allowance and for the standardisation of the level of these allowances. My Department has undertaken an information gathering process with the health boards with a view to arranging for the transfer of responsibility for the payment of these allowances and of the funds involved. An assessment of the scale of the transfer and its implications for a more general removal of the residential care disqualification for disability allowance purposes will be made in the light of this transfer and having regard to available resources and priorities generally.