Domiciliary care allowance is a monthly payment to the parent/guardian of a child with a disability so severe that the child requires care and attention and/or supervision substantially in excess of another child of the same age. This care and attention must be provided to allow the child to deal with the activities of daily living. The child must be likely to require this level of care and attention for at least 12 months.
Applications for domiciliary care allowance are decided by a deciding officer on a case by case basis, with the decision reflecting the individual merits of each application. The deciding officer will have the benefit of the opinion of one of the Department’s medical assessors prior to making their decision.
The medical assessors are all fully qualified medical practitioners who have training/experience in human disability evaluation. The medical assessor’s opinion is based on the information furnished as part of the application process. This information includes personal details supplied on the application form by the child’s parent / guardian; details of the additional care and attention required by the child as outlined by the parent / guardian and medical details provided by the child’s GP or specialist. Any additional information the parent/guardian considers relevant to the application is also reviewed (this could include consultant’s reports, reports from a community health doctor, a copy of the needs assessment carried out by the HSE etc.).
Eligibility is determined primarily by reference to the degree of additional care and attention required by the child rather than to the type of disability involved.
The percentage of any age cohort who are ultimately deemed qualified over any particular period of time will vary due to a number of factors, including the volumes of applications relating to that age group and the ability of the child, as they get older, to better cope with their disability without substantial additional care for another person.
I can confirm that the same assessment criteria is applied to all applications irrespective of the age of child concerned.
