Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 330: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason patients at the Central Mental Hospital, Dublin, are not entitled to the disability allowance. [34725/05]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

There are a number of different categories of residency in the Central Mental Hospital as follows: those detained under the categories of "guilty but insane" and "unfit to plead" who are deemed to be detained in legal custody and are not eligible for payment of disability allowance under the Social Welfare Acts and those detained under the relevant Mental Health Acts who are not considered to be detained in legal custody but rather are deemed to be in residential care and are therefore eligible for disability allowance, personal expenses rate. There are a number of such residents of the Central Mental Hospital currently in receipt of this payment.

The disability allowance, personal expenses rate, was provided for in the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2005, at an amount not exceeding €35 per week, effective from 1 June 2005. This payment replaced the spending allowances, formerly paid by the health boards to people in residential care since prior to 1999 who are not eligible for full disability allowance, solely due to their residency. The Social Welfare Act 1999, made provision for the retention of entitlement to disability allowance where a person who has been living at home subsequently enters residential care, effective from June of that year.

During the administrative preparations for the introduction of the disability allowance, personal expenses rate, my Department contacted the Central Mental Hospital to establish the number of residents who would be eligible for this new payment. There are no plans to amend the current legislation with regard to persons in legal custody. I intend, however, to review the situation regarding people in residential settings who are not currently eligible for the payment of full disability allowance and to move towards the removal of this disqualification so that all persons in residential care will have an income maintenance payment on the same basis.