Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 April 2013
283. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 365 of 23 April 2013, if she has considered instituting a communication procedure in the Courts Service which would allow her Department to immediately stop payments to those sentenced to custody, and avoid repeating the €2 million overpayments made to prisoners in 2011 and to also avoid the cost of clawing back overpayments. [20292/13]
View answer323. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 365 of 23 April 2013, if she is confident the response given is complete; and if she will confirm that no rent assistance or mortgage interest payments were made to prisoners in 2010 and 2011. [20293/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 283 and 323 together.
As outlined in the previous reply referred to by the Deputy, in general a person that is detained in prison is disqualified for payment throughout the period of detention subject to a small number of limited exemptions. Included in the ‘other scheme’ category, there were two rent supplement overpayments recorded in 2011 as a result of a person being in prison.
In order to ensure that payments do not continue when a person is imprisoned, data-matching between the Irish Prison Service (IPS) and this Department is undertaken. This data is currently exchanged on a weekly basis and any social welfare claims in payment are stopped as soon as possible after the person is imprisoned. In this manner, overpayments are minimised and the opportunity to continue to receive a payment while in prison is virtually eliminated.
The data provided by the IPS relates to the date a person actually goes into prison, as opposed to a sentence date given in court, which may not always correspond to the date of entry into prison. Therefore, I am happy that the data provided by the IPS is more appropriate for determining social welfare entitlement.
