Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

47. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if a person (details supplied) in County Kildare is eligible for disability benefit, a disablement payment or an invalidity pension; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41078/15]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Illness benefit is a payment for people who cannot work due to illness and who satisfy the pay related social insurance (PRSI) contribution conditions. One of the PRSI conditions is that a person must have a minimum of 39 reckonable contributions paid or credited in the governing contribution year. Claims made in 2015 are governed by the 2013 tax year, and only PRSI classes A, E, H, and P contributions are reckonable for illness benefit purposes. The person concerned does not satisfy the above criteria.

Invalidity pension (IP) is a payment for people who are permanently incapable of work because of illness or incapacity and who satisfy the pay-related social insurance (PRSI) contribution conditions. To qualify for IP claimants must have at least 260 paid PRSI contributions since entering social insurance and 48 contributions paid or credited in the last complete contribution year before the date of their claim. Only PRSI classes A, E or H contributions are reckonable for IP purposes. From the information available to my Department, it appears that the person concerned does not satisfy the PRSI contribution criteria for IP.

However entitlement to IP can only be definitively determined on receipt of a completed claim form.

Disablement benefit is one of the benefits payable under the occupational injuries scheme to an insured person who suffers a loss of physical or mental faculty as a result of an occupational accident or prescribed occupational disease. The person must have been in insurable employment at the time the accident or the disease was contracted. The person concerned has made two applications for disablement benefit:

- The first application was received on 20 April 2007 in respect of an accident at work on 21 Sep 2006. The person concerned has been awarded disablement benefit from 23 March 2007 with a loss of faculty of 20% for life. This is currently in payment.

- The second alleged accident occurred on 23 May 2006 in respect of a commuter accident on his way to work. This application was received in the department on 2 April 2015. This claim is still under investigation. The person concerned will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible.

According to my Department’s records, the person concerned is currently in receipt of disability allowance at the maximum rate for their circumstances.