Health boards are told to pay full social welfare Christmas bonus

A new circular is being issued to health boards today instructing them to pay the full Christmas bonus to all social welfare recipients on the same basis as in previous years.

The revised circular was drawn up by the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Mr Ahern, with his officials, over the weekend to defuse the outcry over the decision, which could have deprived the poorest social welfare recipients of the Christmas bonus of £50-£70.

In what amounts to a complete U-turn, all recipients of the supplementary welfare allowance as well as the 715,000 people on long-term social welfare payments will receive the Christmas bonus, costing £40 million, from the beginning of this week.

The original circular on the payment of the Christmas bonus, which was sent to health boards by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs 10 days ago, proposed that 70 per cent of their basic weekly payment could be paid in cases where "the recipient has been in receipt of SWA (supplementary welfare allowance) for 12 months or more".

The new circular, to be issued today, completely reverses this position.

It states: "Boards are obliged to make additional payments, not limited to any fixed percentage of the basic rate, to any individual where the board is satisfied that their means are insufficient to meet their needs, including the additional needs that arise at Christmas time. This includes: people who have been on SWA for less than 12 months; SWA recipients who automatically receive a standardised additional payment under the terms set out above; and people who are in receipt of other social welfare payments."

It also instructs health boards that they must be satisfied that no person is left without an adequate SWA payment. "In the event of boards not being in a position for administrative reasons to assess needs on an individual basis, automatic payments may be made by boards on the same basis as in previous years," the circular concludes.

Mr Ahern told The Irish Times that once the contents of the first circular became known to him last Friday, he sat down with his officials on Friday and Saturday and directed that a very detailed circular would go out today.

Every social welfare recipient due to receive a Christmas bonus would get that bonus, he also said in a statement accompanying the circular letter to the health boards, "to sort out misunderstanding on the issue" resulting from the first circular.

"Not only are there no cutbacks - the situation is actually better than in previous years."

The Fine Gael spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, said last night that no amount of undignified blustering from the Minister could mask his welcome climbdown on the issue of Christmas bonus payments for supplementary welfare families.

The Minister had now reversed a badly mistaken decision to remove the Christmas bonus from the neediest and most vulnerable families in the State, he said. The latest estimates given to him by health board sources, Mr O'Keeffe said were that up to 10,000 families would have been denied these payments.

The Department was forced to issue the new circular when the Eastern Health Board insisted on Friday that it would abide by the original circular.

The biggest health board was not satisfied with attempts by officials to clarify "any possible misunderstandings about the matter".