Partial Capacity Benefit (PCB) is a scheme which extends the illness benefit and invalidity pension schemes to recognise and respond to the reality that some people with disabilities have a capacity to engage in open market employment while continuing to need to receive some income support from the State.
People in receipt of Invalidity Pension or Illness Benefit (for a minimum of six months) who wish to return to work are eligible for PCB if their capacity for work is reduced as a result of their medical condition.
The personal rate of payment of PCB is based on a medical assessment of a person’s restriction regarding their capacity for work and whether the person was in receipt of Illness Benefit or Invalidity Pension (i.e. their existing rate of payment). After the medical assessment, if a person's disability is rated as moderate, severe or profound their payment continues at 50, 75 or 100 per cent of their existing rate, respectively.
The duration a person can be in receipt of PCB is linked to the payment they moved from, subject to a maximum of 156 weeks. In the case of Illness Benefit, the maximum duration of the underlying payment of 624 payment days continues to apply and the maximum period allowed on PCB matches that maximum duration. Customers who were previously in receipt of Invalidity Pension may be paid PCB for a maximum of 156 weeks.
The Department contacts customers at 24 and 13 weeks in advance of the expiry date. The correspondence issued outlines options for the customer to consider prior to the payment ceasing. A reapplication for PCB is a new application and must meet all the eligibility criteria.
PCB has been designed so that:
- participation on the scheme is voluntary;
- there is no restriction on the type of work to be undertaken nor any requirement that a person must only undertake work that is of a ‘rehabilitative' or 'therapeutic' nature;
- there is no restriction on the number of hours that can be worked;
- there are no restrictions on the amount that can be earned from employment;
- a person who participates on the PCB scheme may return to an Illness Benefit or Invalidity Pension payment if, for example, the employment ceases or if the person cannot continue to work;
- a person on the PCB scheme, with an underlying entitlement to Invalidity Pension, will retain their Free Travel Pass for a period of five years.
Apart from the above, the Department also provides support under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme, available through local Intreo centres. The Department may also make an exceptional needs payment (ENP) to help meet essential, once-off expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet from their weekly income. Details are available at:
https://www.gov.ie/en/service/ed9724-supplementary-welfare-allowance-supplements-swa/
The early engagement recommendation in terms of PCB was envisaged in the context of other significant changes to the scheme, which included, for example, the introduction of:
- two new payment types i.e. to classify PCB short-term illness as an ‘in-work support’ and to classify PCB long-term illness as an ‘income support’;
- an upper earnings limit to be imposed for long-term illness PCB Benefit;
- a change whereby support for Illness Benefit clients becomes conditional on producing a time-bound phased ‘return to work plan’);
- involving the person, their employer and their GP;
- an alignment of the duration a person can be in receipt of the payment to the ‘return to work plan’;
- In the case of PCB short-term illness, two payment scales to apply (75% and 50% aligned to client’s return to work plan duration);
- a process of for highlighting disability allowance for candidates who may be in a position to work a limited number of hours per week. (The increases to the earnings disregards for both the disability allowance and the blind pension in Budget 2021 may make this a better option for some customers. These increases are to commence from June of this year);
- an improved approach to communications relating to the scheme.
While work is ongoing to further improve the operation of the scheme, there has been an increase in the numbers of persons availing of the payment. There was a 19.6% increase from March 2019 to March 2020 and a smaller increase of 5.2% (during the period of the pandemic) from March 2020 to March 2021. Some 3,172 persons are now availing of the scheme.
