Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 July 2023
107. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will comment on the fact that recipients of partial capacity benefit have recently been told that they will no longer be entitled to their living alone allowance payment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33416/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraWhen dealing with a previous question, we spoke about the fact that people who have disabilities are at much greater risk of poverty. Right now, the Minister's Department has taken the living alone allowance off people on partial capacity benefit. That is absolutely appalling. It is not a very great number of people and not a very great amount of money but, for those people, the decision arrived at by the Minister's Department means a loss of between €44 and €88 a month.
I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. First of all, no money has been taken from anybody. I will read the reply I have, which explains exactly how this situation arose. My Department provides a wide range of income supports and employment supports to assist jobseekers and employees with disabilities. The partial capacity benefit, PCB, scheme allows a person in receipt of an invalidity or illness payment to enter employment or self-employment and continue to receive a partial or full payment. The amount of payment is set at 50%, 75% or 100% of their previous payment, depending on the extent to which their condition is assessed to impair their capacity to work. PCB has also been designed so that there are no restrictions or limits on earnings or on the number of hours a person can work. A person moving from invalidity pension to PCB will continue on his or her payment for a maximum of three years. A person on PCB with an underlying entitlement to an invalidity pension will also retain his or her free travel pass for a period of five years. Furthermore, people on PCB may return to illness benefit or an invalidity pension if they find they cannot continue to work.
As a standard part of its operations to ensure payment integrity and in line with the recommendations of the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Department undertakes reviews of claims on all schemes from time to time in order to ensure that people are on the correct rate of payment and that their ancillary allowances are also correct. These reviews include an assessment of whether people continue to satisfy the conditions for entitlement to an ancillary payment where they move between main schemes, such as when a person moves from a disability payment to a jobseeker's payment.
The Department recently issued letters to a small number of PCB customers with regard to their entitlements. As is appropriate, these letters outlined the purpose of the review and the potential consequences that might arise once a review is completed. In writing to customers, the Department incorrectly indicated a disqualification from the living alone allowance. In fact, when a person with a living alone allowance moves from an illness or invalidity payment to PCB, his or her living alone payment is also adjusted to 50%, 75% or 100% in the same manner as the underlying payment. It was an error. I am sorry for any upset it may have caused anybody. It was an error to say that the payment would be completely disallowed. It was not. Nobody has lost out because of this error. We have corrected the oversight and people will continue on as normal. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue.
It will be impossible for me ever to establish whether this was an oversight or whether the Department is now backtracking.
I am very sure that this did not come to the Minister's desk because it was an administrative decision. I will give the Minister the example I was going to give anyway. A gentleman in my constituency, who is probably not watching this debate, has given me permission to outline the facts of his case, although not to name him. He is sitting at home and believes he is down €66.20 a month. This man has terminal cancer. He was previously on an invalidity payment after working full time all of his life. He went onto PCB on the understanding that he would get the living alone allowance. He got one of these letters a few weeks ago.
Given the correspondence I got when I contacted to the Department, this all seems very clear to me. The letter says that following an internal review of PCB payments, it was highlighted that a small number of customers were also in receipt of a living allowance as part of their payment. It goes on to say that there is no legislative basis for paying this allowance under the entitlements of PCB and that, as such, this gentleman was contacted to inform him that the payment of his living alone allowance would cease. The rest of the letter is not relevant. The point is that it seems this decision was arrived at because of a review. The letter mentions that there is no statutory basis for this payment. There is no statutory basis for free travel, for fuel allowance or, as far as I know, for the living alone allowance. If there is such a basis, it must have been introduced recently. This was an administrative decision and an unkind one. I welcome that it has been changed but it seems unlikely that this happened by accident.
To clarify, this was a genuine error on the part of the Department and it will be rectified. As I have said, as Minister for the Department, that I apologise for the error. Officials had understood that the living alone allowance should not be paid in tandem with PCB. Upon further review, it is now clear that PCB customers should retain their living alone allowance when moving from an invalidity pension and that these letters should not have issued. I extend my apologies to the man the Deputy has mentioned for any upset he may have been caused. I fully understand that he is going through cancer treatment and that getting a shock like that is not what we want to see. However, this was honestly a genuine error on the part of the Department. To be fair to the Department staff, they process millions and millions of payments. In this case, something was read and misunderstood. Everybody who got that letter will now get another letter to say that their payment will remain as is.
I very much accept that Department officials are hard-working and sincere people who administer millions upon millions of claims. It is not my view that there are any issues with regard to people's bona fides but I do believe that a review such as this would have had to involve a meeting and a discussion. I have to accept the Minister's word up to a point. Will the Minister tell us how many people were affected? When will they receive their letters? They will have only missed out on a couple of weeks but will they receive that money back?
Some 180 PCB claimants are in receipt of the living alone allowance. This allowance is paid at the same percentage as PCB. Some 13 claimants have a 100% PCB weekly entitlement while 58 claimants have a 75% PCB weekly entitlement and 109 have a 50% weekly entitlement. Letters issued to all 180 throughout June 2023 informing them that PCB was not a qualifying scheme. It is now clear that PCB customers should retain their living alone allowance on a pro rata basis when moving from invalidity pension and that these letters should not have issued. The Department will write to the customers concerned informing them that their payments will not be affected. The gentleman Deputy Ó Laoghaire has spoken to is one of those people. We will be sending him a letter. I hope that will resolve the matter. It genuinely was an administrative issue. In fairness to the Department, these things rarely happen but it did happen on this one occasion. Once it was realised that an error had been made, it was corrected straightaway.
