• You are here:
• Home /
• Publications /
• Annual Reports /
• Annual Report of the Ombudsman 2004

Annual Report of the Ombudsman 2004

Chapter 3 - Department of Social and Family Affairs - Arrears of Invalidity Pension Refused

Department of Social and Family Affairs

Arrears of Invalidity Pension Refused

A man complained to me that he had been awarded the wrong Social Welfare benefit by the Department of Social & Family Affairs.

In September 1996 he applied for, and was awarded, Disability Allowance (DA). This is a weekly allowance paid to people with a disability who are aged between 16 and 66. The disability must be expected to last for at least one year. The allowance is subject to both medical suitability and a means test.

On his application form his incapacity was described by his GP as “Cerebral Palsy since birth”, the degree of the incapacity was said to be “severe” and would continue “indefinitely”. The application was examined by one of the Department’s Medical Assessors who determined that the man was incapable of work and recommended that he should not be referred again for medical examination.

Even though recipients of DA are deemed to be incapable of work they may, with the prior approval of the Department, take up employment of a rehabilitative nature or work on Community Employment Schemes. In this case the man engaged in various jobs of this nature, having received the required approval from the Department on each occasion. However, as DA is a means tested payment the income he received from those jobs resulted in his weekly welfare payment being reduced.

In early November 2001, following the completion of a period working on a Community Employment Scheme, the man called into his local Citizens Information Centre (CIC) to look for assistance in having his DA restored to the maximum rate. At that stage the manager of the CIC, who had many dealings with the man over the years, made enquiries with the Department in order to check his insurance record as he believed he may have had a possible entitlement to Invalidity Pension (IP). This pension is a PRSI contribution based payment made to people who are permanently incapable of work because of illness or incapacity. This is not a means tested payment.

It came to light, following those enquiries, that the man had enough contributions paid to enable him to qualify for IP and, in fact, would have had sufficient contributions paid at the time he was originally awarded DA in September 1996. In the circumstances, he applied for IP in November 2001 and also applied for payment to be backdated to September 1996. The Department awarded him IP from the date of application in November 2001 but refused his application for arrears on the grounds it considered that, because he was employed while in receipt of DA, he was only entitled to IP from the date of application. He appealed the rejection to the Social Welfare Appeals Office (SWAO) but the Appeals Officer (AO) did not uphold the appeal on the basis that the man was in employment during the period in question. In the circumstances, the AO determined that he could not be regarded at the same time as having been permanently incapable of work.

During the course of my examination of the complaint I obtained the Department’s and the SWAO files. Having examined the matter it seemed to me that it would have been appropriate for the Department, when dealing with the application for DA at the initial stage in September 1996, to have explored the possibility that he may have qualified for IP. During the processing of his DA application, his insurance record had been noted, and, given that he had the requisite number of contributions paid, it would have been evident that he satisfied the contribution conditions required in order to qualify for IP. In addition, while he was in receipt of DA, he had participated in a number of rehabilitative jobs for which exemptions from the Rules of Behaviour had been obviously granted to him. In this regard, I formed the view that because the Rules of Behaviour for both DA and IP were broadly similar, that it would be difficult to envisage that he would not have met the medical criteria for receipt of IP at the time.

As the man’s case had been the subject of an appeal to the SWAO I asked the AO to re-examine the matter. The AO accepted my findings and agreed to review his decision. He subsequently asked the Department to backdate the award of IP to September 1996. As a consequence, the man was awarded an arrears payment amounting to €12,070. A compensatory payment of €1,123 was also issued to him to take account of the loss of purchasing power involved in the award of arrears.

Back to contents