Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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1. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will contact persons who have been refused domiciliary care allowance for the past two years in view of the decision of the High Court of 1 April 2014 that found serious flaws in her Department's handling of such applications; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17793/14]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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This question arises out of the review conducted by the Department of eligibility for domiciliary care allowance and a decision by the High Court on 1 April which overruled a decision of the Department to refuse domiciliary care allowance.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The domiciliary care allowance, DCA, is a monthly payment to the parent or guardian of a child with a disability so severe that the child requires care and attention and-or supervision substantially in excess of another child of the same age. This care and attention must be provided to allow the child to deal with the activities of daily living. The child must be likely to require this level of care and attention for at least 12 months. DCA is currently paid to more than 25,000 clients in respect of more than 27,000 children at a cost in excess of €140 million per year, including the cost of the associated respite care grant.

The High Court ruling of 1 April, to which the Deputy referred, involved a challenge by a mother in regard to the process involved in determining eligibility on her claim for domiciliary care allowance. While the judge found in her favour and ordered that the individual claim be returned to the Department for a new decision, he put a stay on the order to 28 April, thus providing time to the Department to consider the detailed judgment, along with any implications it may have for decision-making. Therefore, as the Deputy will appreciate, I am not in a position to comment further on what actions may be required as a result of this judgment. As this matter is still under consideration, it is not possible to say what contact, if any, will need to be made with customers.

In May 2012, I initiated a review of the DCA, to which the Deputy referred, which specifically brought parents into the process and involved a very wide sampling of parents. More than 300 submissions were received at the time. As a consequence of that, the application form has been redesigned to allow the details of the child’s care needs to be more comprehensively documented by the parent or guardian. Also, an additional medical information form can be completed for children with pervasive developmental disorders, such as autism. This additional medical information, which will be supplied by the specialist attending the child, will ensure that the appropriate information is available to assist in the decision making process.

It is hoped that having as much information as possible on the child’s care needs available at the initial assessment stage will allow the correct decision to be made at the earliest opportunity possible and reduce the need for further examination and for recourse to the appeals process.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

The revised application-decision process will also include improved feedback in regard to the decision reasons at both application and appeal stages. Details on the new process along with revised guidelines covering the administrative changes are available on and have been notified to all CIB offices and to parent-guardian representative groups.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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This decision was on medical eligibility. The Minister will be aware that the High Court was scathing about what it referred to as the Department's disdainful mindset to the evidence of long-term experts, all of whom had seen the child in question, and condemned the fact that despite this evidence, the Department insisted on making its decision based on the desk top review done by its medical assessors.

Is this not a problem which exists outside the domiciliary care allowance area? There are many social welfare payments which depend on one's medical condition, including invalidity pension, disability allowance and illness benefit. Does the same system not apply throughout the Department? We have come across numerous cases where people have applied for one of those medically-based entitlements and have submitted evidence of experts who have seen the patients but where the desk top review still triumphed at the end? Will the Minister accept that this is a problem which is not just confined to the domiciliary care allowance area?

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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As the Deputy will recall, it is for that reason that after I became Minister - we have had a number of discussions on this - I set up the review group, which was chaired by Sylda Langford and included quite a number of parents and which involved carrying out a sampling exercise involving 1,000 parents. This included work on the domiciliary care allowance right down to redesigning the forms in a way that they would be much more parent-friendly.

The Deputy should remember that up to 2009, domiciliary care allowance was paid by the HSE. It then transferred over to the Department. Since it transferred from the HSE, the number of applications and the number of successful claims for DCA have gone up enormously. In 2013, for instance, under the new system, the success rate in terms of people applying increased to 73%.

One of the problems we have, which is why I drew attention to it in my reply, is incomplete medical evidence at the early stage of application. That is why we have provided, in particular for children with specific disorders, including children on the autism spectrum or the Asperger's spectrum, a specific form which would allow medical advisers as well as parents or guardians to put forward a much more detailed case than was the case in the past.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for answering a question I did not ask. I am aware of the review in regard to domiciliary care allowance but I asked her about other health-related entitlements where the decision on medical eligibility is taken in exactly the same flawed way which the High Court condemned in its decision on 1 April. As the Minister said, a review has taken place, parents are more involved in domiciliary care allowance, forms have been redesigned, etc. However, many people have been refused domiciliary care allowance under the old system. Does the Department intend to contact those people who have been refused under the old system in recent times and advise them that the whole system has changed, that there is now a new form and that they are entitled to apply again?

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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As the Deputy knows, it has been made absolutely clear to parents - it is a unique feature of the Irish system in regard to this allowance and to other medically-based allowances paid in respect of disability or invalidity - that under our system, we allow people to submit fresh medical evidence for review purposes at any stage.

We have discussed this before. If people immediately go to an appeal, the appeal process is statute based and inevitably takes more time. We have been reducing the times but the backlog I inherited, particularly from the Deputy's Government, was very significant.

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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It is very significant now. It takes six months for appeals.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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That is a fact. The facts are there to show it. The actual rates for people getting this very important allowance for children and their parents have increased significantly. In 2013, the granting rate for this particular allowance went up to 73%.

I do not have the statistics to hand for all of the other allowances because the Deputy did not ask about them in his question. If he cares to put a separate question on them, I would be happy to answer it separately.