asked the Minister for Social Welfare whether a local officer of his Department is entitled to disallow payment of unemployment assistance to a recipient within a few weeks of an appeals officer deciding in favour of the applicant.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Assistance.
47.
My Department has itself now no local officers who are authorised to decide on entitlement to unemployment assistance. Local officers of the Department of Labour who have been appointed as deciding officers for the purposes of the Unemployment Assistance Acts have limited authority to decide on unemployment assistance applications and would naturally be expected in arriving at a decision to take into account the relevance, if any, to the question being decided, of any previous appeal decision. Normally, however, cases involving disallowance would be referred to the headquarters of my Department for decison. If the Deputy has a particular case in mind and will let me have the details, I shall have the matter examined.