Vol. 426 No. 1
35 Miss Quill asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will give details of the gain to the Exchequer arising from the recent changes in both income and PRSI qualifying conditions for treatment benefits; the number of people who have been disqualified arising out of these changes; and the plans, if any, he has to reverse this decision as introduced by the previous Minister for Social Welfare.
Amendments to the qualifying conditions for treatment (dental, optical and aural aids) benefits were made by my predecessor in July 1992.
From the outset, the condition requiring 13 paid contributions in a recent year did not apply to persons who had attained pension age. In December 1992, the regulations were revised to extend a similar exemption to persons in receipt of invalidity pension or long term disability benefit. This was in recognition of the fact that such persons were not in a position, at least in the short term, to resume insurable employment.
It is estimated that the measures yielded savings of the order of £600,000 in 1992 and affected 12,000 claims. However, overall expenditure on treatment benefits increased by £1.2 million in 1992 and therefore any savings were more than offset by improvements elsewhere within the treatment benefit scheme. In particular, the full extension of dental benefit cover to over 300,000 dependent spouses, which had been delayed due to the opposition of the Irish Dental Association, was finalised and the full 300,000 spouses can avail of the complete range of treatment from their local dentists.
