Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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102. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason a person (details supplied) in County Cork has been cut off from receiving domiciliary care allowance; the criteria that changed that meant they were no longer eligible; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19531/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department has been accepting new claims for domiciliary care allowance (DCA) since 1 April 2009. The person concerned has not been in receipt of DCA at any time since the scheme transferred to the Department. There have been no changes made to the qualification criteria since the Department took over the administration of the scheme.

Information relating to any application that may have been submitted or paid prior to April 2009 is a matter for the HSE, the previous administrators of the scheme. An application for DCA was received from the person concerned in my Department on the 30th April 2010. This application was referred to one of the Department’s Medical Assessors who found that the child was not medically eligible for the allowance. A letter issued on the 16th July 2010 advising of the decision not to allow the application. The person concerned subsequently lodged an appeal against this decision and she was informed by the Social Welfare Appeals Office on 6th January 2012 that the appeal had not been allowed.

The decision/appeal process for this application is now complete. If the person concerned has additional information which was not available to the deciding and appeals officers when they made their decisions, or if circumstances have changed in the intervening period, it is open to her to re-apply for the allowance at any time.