Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Section 3 provides for limiting the payment of disablement benefit in the case of assessments of loss of faculty of less than 15%. Existing disablement benefit claimants who have qualified for payment before 1 January 2012 on the basis of assessments of less than 15% and cases where the accident occurred before 1 January 2012 but because they are incapable of work and claiming injury benefit they are not able to claim disablement benefit for a period of up to six months, will be protected. These provisions will come into effect from the beginning of January 2012.

Disablement benefit is a payment under the occupational injuries scheme which is payable to an insured person who suffers a loss of physical or mental health as a result of an occupational accident or a prescribed occupational disease. Disablement benefit may be paid as a once-off gratuity or in the form of a disablement pension. It can be paid in addition to any other social welfare payment, including illness benefit. It is payable regardless of whether the claimant has returned to work.

The measure contained in the section, which introduces a 15% minimum disablement threshold, does no more than bring the arrangements in Ireland into line with the approach taken in the United Kingdom and places Ireland broadly in the mid-range of EU practice in this area. Several EU member states have substantially higher thresholds in place, including Germany where the minimum threshold is 20% and the Netherlands where the threshold is 35%.

Section 3 provides that entitlement to disablement benefit will be confined to those where the level of disability assessed is 15% or more and where the initial period of assessment commences on or after 1 January 2012. The section also provides that claimants whose initial period of assessment has commenced prior to 1 January 2012 will not be subject to the new threshold.

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