Motion on Social Welfare Benefits - 9th November 2005

Motion on Social Welfare Benefits – 9th November 2005

Mr. Norris: I welcome the Minister to the
House. I want to comment on the general topic
of the motion without going into some of the
specifics.
This is an important area. It touches people’s
real, lived experience and it is not appropriate for
any of us to engage in a polemical, partisan series
of attacks. What we must do in this House is urge
the Minister to take as constructive a role in this
area as possible and to be as helpful as possible.
I want to raise a number of issues that may,
apparently, be marginal but at the same time are
very important. When I first read the motion I
was struck by the use of the word “spouse”. I
would make a serious point to the Minister,
namely, that I abhor the way the Government
behaved with regard to a case in the past few
years that came before the Equality Tribunal
established by the Government. This case
involved a same-sex couple, one of whom felt that
he should have been entitled to the same travel
privileges as other employees’ spouses. The
Equality Tribunal found in favour of this couple
but the response of the Government was not to
move to redress the inequity or the discrimination
but to move legislatively to copperfasten it by
redefining the word “spouse”. I know the Minister
is a decent, intelligent and compassionate
man but it is not appropriate in this day and age
that people like me should be defined by legislation
into second-class citizenship of this country.
It is simply not acceptable any more and I
regret very much, as an Irish citizen and as a representative
in the Upper House of Parliament,
that this Parliament processed and passed the
only discriminatory legislative measure in this
area that I know of in any European country over
the past ten or 15 years. I hope this will be examined
again because it is no longer acceptable that
people are regarded, simply on the basis of sexual
orientation, as being second-class citizens.
The other aspect I want to examine is a very
specific area in which I know the Minister can
have an impact. I am aware that things are moving
and improving but I refer to the question of
the social welfare appeals system. I raise this
matter because I was asked during the week to
launch a report on this by the Northside Community
Law Centre. These are the most vulnerable
and marginalised people. Most of the people
who go through the appeals system have an
income of less than \15,000 a year and are therefore
on the margins. Many of them are people
who have a disability and so on.
The first point that is made in this report, and
it is a useful one, is that there is at least a perception
of lack of independence because the appeals
board is within the Department. In the course of
preparing this report an internationally comparative
survey was undertaken, which looked at the
experience of other countries, including the
United Kingdom. The point was made that where
people who are civil servants are hearing appeals
on decisions taken by their senior fellows, there
may be very high levels of integrity but there is
at least the perception of a lack of independence.
What is needed with an appeals board is guaranteed
independence and the perception of that
independence.
There were a number of practical suggestions
in the report. As some of these claimants, or
appellants, do not have the highest levels of social
skills or educational attainment they, as indeed
many of us, and I include myself in that, are easily
intimidated by the need to fill in forms, which can
be a little bewildering. The point was made that
as in some other countries, it might be possible to
examine the situation where the initial claim
could be registered either electronically or by
telephone to make it as consumer friendly as
possible.
The research groups indicated that officials of
the Department went out of their way to be courteous
and co-operative and to give as much information
as they could, without which this report
could not have been compiled. It is important to
put that on the record in case it is perceived I am
criticising for the sake of criticising but they did
make the point that figures are not always available
in areas where they would be useful. I will
give one example of that. Many of the claimants
or appellants felt that they would have had a
much better chance if they had been legally represented.
There are no figures available on this
and I urge the Minister to continue to co-operate
with these research groups because there will be
further research programmes to ascertain these
figures and to make them available. A clear view
would then emerge from these figures because
although we do not have figures within this jurisdiction,
we do have them from the neighbouring
jurisdiction, the United Kingdom, and in particular
from the North. The figures in the North
show very clearly that the success rate of appellants
under their appeal system is actually
doubled where they have legal representation.
That suggests to me that there may be a significant
number of people who have their appeals
disallowed, not because of the invalidity of their
claim but because of the lack of expertise or polish
with which that claim is presented; that could
be looked at if they had legal representation.
I understand that the situation in law is that
there is no absolute statutory requirement that
legal aid be given but, on the other hand, opinion
has been sought and has stated that whereas this
is not mandatory, at the same time if it was
decided to refuse or to deny legal aid, a court
might regard that as being ultra vires and it might
then hold that the appellant was entitled to legal
representation. In terms of fairness, decency and
justice, when a situation arises where it seems
obvious from figures from the other part of the
island albeit in the absence of our own, it seems
clear that legal representation does lead to
success.
Decisions should be published. I see the Acting
Chairman leaning forward. How much time do I
have remaining?
Acting Chairman (Mr. Dardis): The Senator
has half a minute——
Mr. Norris: I am sure it will be an expanded
half minute.
Acting Chairman: ——or 30 seconds if the
Senator prefers.
Mr. Norris: I would like another minute and 30
seconds. I hope the Minister has received a copy
of this report and that he will read it. It contains
many graphs and so on, which I do not particularly
like, but there is also the human face.
There are six case histories in the report. One, for
example, concerns a woman who applied for a
one-parent family payment. She was denied on
the grounds that she had made insufficient
attempts to get maintenance. She did not know
what that phrase meant. She felt she had done
everything she could. It turned out that they
wanted her to get a court order for maintenance
but she did not want to do that for the very
human and understandable reason that her husband
was violent. He was still in the home and
she was afraid that if she applied for a court order
she would be whacked again. It is not right that
she should be forced to do something that would
jeopardise her well-being.
Problems sometimes arise as a result of a conflict
between the claimant’s own medical opinion
and the opinion of the medical assessor. In one
case, a woman turned up three times for a medical
assessment. The first time the medical assessor
did not turn up. The second time he turned up
but he did not have the necessary equipment to
measure her disability. The third time he gave her
a cursory examination. That is not appropriate.
I ask the Acting Chairman to allow me to mention
the final case. I raised a similar case some
years ago in the Seanad successfully and the Minister
at the time was compassionate. It is about the
way in which one entitlement is subtracted from
another so that people get the minimum payment.
The case concerns disability allowance.
Acting Chairman: The Senator has taken a
flexible approach to 30 seconds.
Mr. Norris: I am just finishing. This woman was
claiming disability allowance. She then took up a
FA´ S course and was denied the disability allowance.
She was also a lone parent. Had she claimed
the lone parents allowance, which she did not, she
could have kept that payment and taken up the
FA´ S course. It seems daft to me that because she
did not claim the right one she was denied a payment
the Department had been paying.
Acting Chairman: The Senator must conclude.
Mr. Norris: It looked for a repayment of \3,000
and took away the payment, which I am glad to
say was restored on appeal. I raised the issue of
a blind student.
Acting Chairman: Senator, 30 seconds is not 2
minutes.
Mr. Norris: I am only on 25. The blind student
got a scholarship to do a PhD in history. By way
of reward they subtracted the value of the scholarship
from the blind allowance. That is mean
and penny pinching. Somebody with a disability
who has the gumption to do something for themselves
should be encouraged and supported, not
penalised.