In the case of disability benefit, entitlement to payment is not affected by the residential status of the claimant. Disability benefit is an insurance payment made to persons who are unable to work due to illness and is paid if the person satisfies the PRSI contributions for payment. Disability benefit is, therefore, paid while a person is in hospital or any long-term care institution without restriction.
Responsibility for the disabled person's maintenance allowance, DPMA, scheme was transferred from the Department of Health and Children and the health boards to the Department of Social and Family Affairs in October 1996. On the transfer of the scheme the existing qualifying conditions were retained and the scheme was renamed disability allowance.
One of the qualifying conditions applying to the former DPMA scheme was that the payment could not be made to people who were in residential care where the cost of the person's maintenance was met in whole or in part by a health board.
Effectively, persons who would otherwise have qualified for disability allowance would continue to have their maintenance costs and, in certain cases, an element of spending money met separately rather than through a disability allowance payment.
Since the take-over of the scheme by my Department, the restrictions on payment to persons in residential care have been progressively eased. From August 1999 existing disability allowance recipients who are living at home can retain their entitlement where they subsequently go into hospital or residential care.
A review of illness and disability payment schemes completed by my Department in September 2003 recommended the removal of the residential care disqualification for disability allowance purposes. The working group which oversaw the review recognised that the removal would have a range of implications, and that, in the absence of reliable data on the numbers involved and the funding arrangements currently in place, it was not possible to fully assess the likely impact or cost of such a move.
Budget 2003 provided for the take-over by my Department of the discretionary "pocket money" allowances paid to people with disabilities in residential care who are not entitled to disability allowance and for the standardisation of the level of these allowances. My Department is currently completing an information gathering process with the health boards with a view to arranging for the transfer of responsibility for the payment of these allowances and of the funds involved. An assessment of the scale of the transfer and its implications for a more general removal of the residential care disqualification for disability allowance purposes will be made in the light of this transfer and having regard to available resources and priorities generally.