Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, SWA, which is administered on behalf of the Department by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive, HSE, is designed to provide immediate and flexible assistance for those in need who do not qualify for payment under other State schemes. Since 1 May 2004, all applicants for SWA regardless of nationality are required to be habitually resident in the State to qualify for a payment. The effect of this condition is that a person whose habitual residence is elsewhere does not qualify for SWA. Once-off exceptional and urgent needs payments are not subject to the habitual residence condition.

SWA cannot be viewed as a temporary or interim means of income support available independently of the habitual residence condition while an applicant awaits the outcome of either a decision or an appeal against a decision on a claim for a social welfare payment from the Department. It is understood that the persons concerned moved to Ireland from the UK in April 2010. They had been in receipt of incapacity payments and a carer's allowance in the UK. However, it is understood that these are no longer in payment. It appears they moved to Ireland with no apparent means of supporting themselves except to claim social welfare.

The HSE has advised that it awarded a basic supplementary welfare allowance payment and a rent supplement payment to the persons in question in May 2010. This decision was reviewed in March 2011, and the HSE discovered that the persons in question should never have been considered habitually resident in the State. The HSE has further advised that it then decided to withdraw the payments and advised the person in question of this decision on 15 March 2011; payments ceased from the beginning of April 2011. The decision of the HSE to withdraw payments was appealed to the HSE appeals office and is currently under consideration.

The persons in question also claimed carer's allowance and disability allowance from the Department. Both of these claims were also refused as the medical criteria for the schemes were not satisfied and the deciding officers also considered that the persons in question did not satisfy the habitual residence condition. These decisions have been appealed to the chief appeals office which has advised that it proposes to hold an oral hearing in this case.

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