We were promised a one-stop shop to help the unemployed cut through the red tape of claiming benefits – there's still no sign of it and applying for social welfare seems to be getting even more complicated, writes CONOR POPE
IT’S NOT HARD To see how easy it is for someone new to the social welfare system to get completely lost. A newly-unemployed person in need of State support has to visit their local social welfare office to register for one payment and a community welfare office for another. Then they will have to make contact with the HSE to apply for a medical card. They may have to register with Fás for a back-to-work-programme and apply for supplementary benefits.
With every visit and every application they have to fill in paper forms which frequently ask for exactly the same information. These are then collected and assessed by several different groups of public servants and input into computers and filed away. It is, by any measure, hideously complicated and a shocking waste of resources.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this anymore.
In the run-up to February’s general election, a key element of Fine Gael’s manifesto was the establishment of a one-stop shop for welfare recipients dealing with the State’s benefits and training agencies. These one-stop shops would be super-efficient and user-friendly and would dramatically cut down on waste. They haven’t come to pass yet however.
Ciara Kenny is a social welfare expert who works with the Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS) to help people make their way through the complex maze of our welfare system. She describes the system as it stands as “a disaster to use”, with a huge amount of rules and regulations which even the people employed to understand them struggle to understand. “To me the laws governing the system are cracked and it is certainly not easy to use,” she told Pricewatch.
“The difficulty for Joe Public is there are very few places equipped to give competent advice.” And there is, she says, little that is worse than the wrong advice. Someone may be told something by a community welfare officer or by someone working in the Citizens Information Centre that turns out to be wrong, a fact which only emerges months down the road when they have built up massive debts.
Some changes are coming down the tracks however. We asked the Department of Social Protection how the one-stop shop was shaping up and were told that “given the different contingencies addressed by different schemes and the differing information requirements that result, it is unlikely that we will ever get to a situation in which a single application form will serve all purposes.” Examples of the differing information requirements include mortgage interest supplement which requires details of a claimant’s income and their mortgage payments; while illness benefit requires details of a claimant’s employment record, medical condition and PRSI contributions.
However the statement went on to say that the Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton was “determined to simplify the application process to the greatest extent possible”. It said that the development and implementation of a new National Employment and Entitlements Service (NEES) would “integrate the provision of employment services and benefit payment services within the department and in so doing to ensure that the payment of income supports to people who do not have a job is directly linked to the equally, if not more important, task of supporting people in their pursuit of employment and related opportunities and improving their life chances”.
The department is promising that NEES would respond “to demands for a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach to the delivery of services for the unemployed. Clients are frustrated by the necessity to apply on multiple occasions, providing the same information to be assessed separately by multiple service providers for what they perceive to be similar services – all of which are provided by the State. By offering an integrated service, the NEES intends to address these concerns.”
John Stewart of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) says there are aspects of the new system that are to be welcomed and is optimistic it will make things easier for social welfare recipients but he cautions that “at the end of the day it needs to put the unemployed person at the heart of the system.”
He points out that there are people entering the social welfare system who never thought they would have any dealings with it and they are discovering how complex it is. He says it needs to be modernised to reflect the changing reality of more part-time work.
He is correct. Some aspects of the system as it stands are ridiculous. A person working one hour a day, five days a week is deemed to be ineligible for social welfare while someone who works for seven hours a day twice a week is entitled to 60 per cent of their allowances.
Stewart says the key to making the system more user-friendly is allowing people to access accurate and updated information as to their entitlements.
“You need to be armed with knowledge even before you go into a social welfare office. We believe that the information as to a person’s entitlements should be given by officials as a matter of course rather than having to be requested by the applicant. Anecdotally we are being told that people are not being given a complete picture of their entitlements by staff in the social welfare offices.”
Kenny sings from the same hymn sheet. “Too often people on the frontline are not resourced and not trained. People are being given bad advice and as a result they don’t have enough to eat. It is a nightmare,” she says. She points out that a person on welfare is “in the poor man’s world and you have no access to proper advice and that is one of the problems. There is an absence of properly-equipped advice centres”.
One area of conflict, for want of a better word, between the system and the public in recent years has been the mortgage interest supplement which many people may be entitled to if they lose their jobs. Effectively it will cover the interest payments on a mortgage – but not the capital – for a set period and will help stop people falling into arrears. Community welfare officers have the authority to sign off on this supplement but the decision making process is not clear and frequently they get it wrong.
Kenny has been involved in around 100 mortgage interest supplement appeals in recent times and she says she has won nearly all of them.
“The reasons community welfare officers gave for rejecting applications were so repetitive, “she says. “Some of the community welfare officers know the law and administer it fairly,” she says and leaves the sentence hanging.
One of the problems is the language used in the regulations. People may be entitled to a “reasonable” mortgage interest supplement but there is no definition of what is reasonable.
Kenny also highlights the problem of people coming into the system for the first time who don’t know how it works. She says such people “may not have the right documentation and have to make repeat visits which slows down the process. It is a tough, tough system. There is an impression in some quarters that the long-term unemployed know the system and can make it work for them. This is a myth.”
Stewart highlights another “myth” which is that the self-employed are not entitled to social welfare. “You must always apply. Yes, it can be more complicated and yes there is a means test but you should still apply. There is a lot of misinformation out there that stops some self-employed people making applications.” Kenny agrees. She accepts that “it is harder but not impossible. You have to prove you are no longer self-employed. In the absence of sufficient evidence that you are not self-employed any more, the Department base the claim on last year’s earning. People who don’t understand the system don’t understand how poor you need to be to make a claim.”
Know Your Rights
If you lose your job you are entitled to claim either jobseekers benefit or jobseekers allowance from the Department of Social Protection.
You qualify for jobseekers benefit if you have a certain number of PRSI contributions, or “stamps” and this benefit is not means-tested. If you want to check your PRSI record you can contact the Department of Social Protection on 01-7043000 and ask for the PRSI section.
If you don’t have enough “stamps” to allow you to claim, you need to apply for a jobseekers allowance. This is means-tested.
To make any claim you must make an appointment with your local social welfare office. Information on where your nearest office is can be found at welfare.ie
Depending on where you live, you can expect to wait for up to two weeks for an appointment.
At that first meeting you must bring a range of documentation – welfare.ie has the complete list. Among the most important documents are a P45, P60, proof of identity and residence, and an RP50 form if you have been made redundant. You will also be expected to provide proof that you are making efforts to seek work.
At this meeting, a claim will be discussed and forms filled in. The average processing time for some claims was over three months but it has been reduced in recent months.
If you are waiting on a decision you can apply for a means-tested supplementary welfare allowance payment. Applications should be made to the Community Welfare Office at your local health centre.
After a claim has been authorised you are obliged to sign on once a month at your dole office, and to collect your money once a week at the post office.
For advice, you can speak in confidence to the welfare-to-work section of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, inou.ie) at 01-8560088, Monday to Friday, 9.30am- 5pm.
