Disability payment threshold could go from 16 up to 18

Up to 2,000 teenagers could be affected if proposals to increase the minimum qualifying age for disability allowance are adopted.

In a briefing note prepared for Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar, officials from his department advise of proposals to change the age threshold from 16 to 18.

Mr Varadkar was also told there was no provision for a return of the Christmas bonus this year or in subsequent years.

The paper, which was prepared for the Minister upon taking office, was released last week with some information blacked out. The Irish Times has seen an unredacted version.

Mr Varadkar is told the department is keen to reform disability and illness payments in a move away from passive benefits towards “income and labour market integration for people with disabilities”. The current payment is €188 a week.

The document adds: “To this end, the department has developed proposals to reform disability and illness payments so that capacity . . . is acknowledged and supported, by including people with disabilities in a more structured way in the activation programme, ie as a cohort within the broad definition of ‘job seekers’.

“Following on from this approach, the minimum qualifying age for illness and disability income support payments would be set at 18 years of age.

“The approach of the reform proposal would be to ensure that access to long-term schemes would be confined to those with more severe and long-term illnesses/ disabilities . . . income supports would continue to be provided to those who have a restriction in their capacity to work due to illness or disability, using a more nuanced activation/ engagement process delivered via the Intreo office network.”

In Budget 2012, then minister for social protection Joan Burton announced she was raising the age of entitlement for new claimants to 18 in line with other social welfare payments. She reversed the decision after an outcry from opposition parties and disability groups. A report from 2013 said the move would have affected 1,700 teenagers and saved €10 million.

The Minister of State for Disability, Finian McGrath, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Policy options

“The briefing paper presents a number of policy options, not decisions, across all areas of the department’s activities,” a department spokesman said. “No decision has been taken in this particular area and it will ultimately be a matter for consideration by the Government.”

The document also raises concern about the fall in the number of people using the post office for social welfare payments, noting there has been an “ongoing decline in the number of social welfare transactions at An Post”.

It warns this trend is expected to continue and possibly accelerate as the “Live Register reflects an improving economy”.

The department said customers are overwhelmingly choosing to be paid into bank accounts.

An Post should make available a "basic or low cost bank account", it suggested.

However, it said many department customers are not in receipt of means-tested payments and may not qualify for access to a free or low-cost standard bank account if offered by An Post.