Vol. 417 No. 5
418 Mr. Cotter asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason a person (details supplied) in County Monaghan has been refused supplementary welfare by the North Eastern Health Board as his spouse has left him, his business has collapsed and he is now in a position whereby he is unable to provide for his children; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The person concerned applied for unemployment assistance but was refused on grounds of means. He has appealed against this decision and it is expected that his appeal will be dealt with shortly.
Under the provisions of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme the determination of applications for assistance is a matter for the health board. It is understood from the North Eastern Health Board, which is responsible for the administration of the scheme in County Monaghan, that the person in question was initially refused supplementary welfare on the grounds of means. However, it is also understood that, following a review of his circumstances in recent weeks, supplementary welfare allowance is now in payment on a provisional basis.
419 Mr. Cotter asked the Minister for Social Welfare the reason a person (details supplied) in County Monaghan has been refused supplementary welfare by the North Eastern Health Board as his spouse has left him with five children to care for and his business has collapsed and he is now in very difficult circumstances; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The person concerned applied for and has been awarded lone parent's allowance by my Department. A payment book has been sent to his local post office in the past week.
The determination of applications for supplementary welfare allowance assistance is a matter for the health board. It is understood from the North Eastern Health Board, which is responsible for the administration of the scheme in County Monaghan, that an earlier application by the person concerned was refused on the grounds that he failed to disclose means from self-employment as a lorry driver.
420 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Social Welfare if his attention has been drawn to the fact that although full payment can continue for six weeks after the death of a spouse in the case of a person in receipt of unemployment assistance which includes an adult dependant allowance, the pre-retirement allowance is reduced to single rate immediately upon death of an adult dependant; if he considers that this affords equitable treatment to persons who opt for pre-retirement allowance; the steps, if any, he will take to remove this anomaly from the social welfare code; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The arrangements for after-death social welfare payments were extended in last year's Social Welfare Act to include the continuation in payment of the adult dependant allowance for a person of six weeks after the death of an adult dependant. This arrangement is a feature of benefits such as disability benefit, unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance.
There is no similar arrangement in the case of long term pension and allowance schemes, including pre-retirement allowance. The extension of the arrangement to the pre-retirement allowance would have cost implications and could only be considered in a budgetary context.
421 Mr. Harte asked the Minister for Social Welfare the present position in relation to people's entitlement to social welfare payments where they have been made redundant with particular reference to those people who have been made redundant by a company (details supplied) in County Donegal and who have been refused social welfare payments.
Persons who are made redundant are entitled to unemployment benefit if they have the necessary level of insurance contributions and satisfy the other statutory conditions of being available for and genuinely seeking work. Each application is examined by a deciding officer who must be satisfied that these conditions are fulfilled.
A number of those made redundant by the company mentioned by the Deputy had their claims approved, some were disqualified for a period of six weeks and others had their claims disallowed. These decisions were made on the basis of the level of information available to the deciding officer at the time. Those disqualified or disallowed appealed the decisions against them and arising from the grounds of appeal and information not previously available the deciding officer reviewed the earlier decisions and allowed the claims.
