Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions

Office of the Ombudsman Annual Report 2011: Discussion with the Ombudsman

4:40 pm

Ms Emily O'Reilly:

It related to the mobility allowance scheme. This gives a monthly payment to people who have difficulty getting out and about by virtue of age, isolation or disability to allow them to use taxis or whatever means possible to get out so that they are not housebound or to get respite care. The Department had an upper age limit of 66 for the scheme so anybody over the age of 66 could not benefit from the scheme. When we looked at this, we discovered it was in breach of the Equal Status Act under the age category. We wrote to the Department accordingly and recommended that the woman in question be paid €6,000 in arrears for a benefit she would have received had she been given the allowance in the first place. We also recommended that the Department make changes and inform people that from now on, people over the age of 66 are perfectly entitled to apply for this and get it if they meet other criteria. The Department fully agreed with our analysis and accepted our recommendations. There was no issue whatsoever in terms of how we had analysed it. The Department accepted it was in breach of the Equal Status Act and what we expected to happen was that a circular would be issued to all relevant bodies and people would be able to apply for the scheme.

We waited but nothing happened. The individual was paid the €6,000.

A similar issue had arisen previously with regard to motorised transport grant and the Department sent a circular to everybody and the issue was fixed. In this instance we were told the person had to await a decision from the Government and we are still waiting. In our view the person does not have to await a decision from the Government because we have found, and the Department agreed, it is in breach of the Equal Status Act, and therefore it should be changed. We made a recommendation in April 2011 and it is now October 2012 so 18 months later nothing has happened.