John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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390. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a disability payment will be approved for a person (details supplied). [21160/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Disablement Benefit is one of the benefits payable under the occupational injuries benefit scheme. It is payable to an insured employee who suffers a loss of physical or mental faculty as a result of an occupational accident or a prescribed occupational disease that was sustained on or after 1 May 1967. A person must have been in insurable (occupational injuries) employment, paying PRSI Class A, B, D, J or M at the time of the accident or when the disease was contracted.

The person concerned applied for Disablement Benefit on 27 June 2022. According to the information available to my Department, when they suffered a personal injury, they were not insurably employed. According to the records, at this time the claimant was returning S class PRSI contributions (self employed).

Therefore, the Deciding officer deemed that this was not an occupational injury or disease, and consequently they decided that the person concerned is not entitled to Disablement Benefit.

This claim for Disablement Benefit was disallowed on the 4 July 2022 and the person concerned was offered the right to request a review and/or appeal of this decision. No request was received.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.