Boy with ADHD sues over refusal of disability allowance

A teenage boy with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and a cleft lip and palate has taken a High Court challenge after being refused a disability allowance.

The case raises issues concerning whether there is a policy within the Department of Social Protection under which disability allowance deciding officers abdicate their decision making responsibilities by deferring to the opinion of Deparmental medical assessors based on "desk assessments" of applicants.

In the 16-year old boy’s case, it is alleged the deciding officer impermissibly refused the allowance on the basis of a desk assesssment by the departmental medical assessor that the boy was not “substantially restricted” in getting employment suitable to his age, experience and qualifications.

The relevant social welfare regulations make no provision for any input by a medical assessor into such decisions prior to the carrying out of a physical examination, it is argued.

Leave to bring the judicial review challenge was granted by Mr Justice Micheal Peart to Derek Shorthall BL, instructed by solicitor Gareth Noble.

The boy, suing through his mother, has been diagnosed with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and also has a cleft lip and palate.

His mother had received a domiciliary care allowance for him but, on reaching 16, qualification for a care allowance ceases and the issue of qualification for a disability allowance arises.

The qualifying conditions require an applicant must suffer from a specified disability with the effect they are substantially restricted in undertaking employment suitable to their age, experience and qualifications. The allowance is also subject to means.

In an affidavit, the boy’s mother said he applied last April for the allowance and submitted a medical report fron a consulant child and adolescent psychiatrist. She and a doctor also completed a supplementary form in which she set out her son’s social and behavioural difficulties.

She also provided other material, including school reports outlining his difficulties at school and poor attendance record, plus a letter from the same child psychiatrist stating her son’s speech production difficulties affected his self-esteem, resulting in difficulties in relationships and episodes of low mood, frustration and anger outbursts.

Her son would not be capable for the foreseeable future of taking up the sort of work normally engaged by in people of his age, she said, but she very much hoped that would change in the future. The family, school and doctors were working towards that, the mother added.

On July 15th last, the department refused her son’s application on the basis he did not satisfy the “medical condition”.

Having obtained her son’s departmental file via a Freedomn of Information request, that incouded an opinion of a departmental medical assessor and an earlier decision by a different deciding officer, she said. Issues arose relating to the statuory roles of the deciding officers and medical assessors, she said.