The elderly, the sick, widows and young flat-dwellers are among the victims of bureaucratic malpractice uncovered by the Ombudsman's office during 1998. He criticised the Department of Social Welfare for sloppy procedures; the Revenue Commissioners for attempting to use vulnerable people to claim tax due from others; and health boards for abuse of power.
An elderly Donegal man was refused an Essential Repairs Grant of £3,300 for his house by the county council because the building contractor failed to prove his tax affairs were in order.
The Ombudsman examined the regulations and found they did not state it was the grant applicant's responsibility to establish the builder's tax status. The investigation also found the applicant had no way of verifying with the Revenue Commissioners whether the building contractor's tax affairs were in order.
Under the regulations, the grant can be paid where the applicant acted in good faith. The Ombudsman said this was clearly the case in this instance.
But even when the council accepted this, it said it required authorisation for payment from the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The Ombudsman prevailed upon the Department to change its mind, only to be told the agreement of the Department of Finance was also required.
Eventually, the Department of Finance sanctioned the payment. But the Ombudsman noted in his report that it took 19 months of negotiation with three separate public bodies.
The Revenue demanded £801 from a woman because she had not deducted tax from rent payments she had made to her landlord, who lived abroad. The woman had claimed income-tax relief on her apartment of £265 for the previous two years. The tax inspector accepted she was entitled to the money but told her that she should have been withholding the tax element of the rent due to the landlord.
If the tax was not withheld the tenant became legally liable. Eventually the tax inspector set the income-tax relief against the landlord's tax and reduced the amount due to £536.
The Ombudsman said it was unreasonable to expect the tenant to be aware of the law relating to non-resident landlords.
He said this was "a case of the Revenue Commissioners using a big stick against an innocent party" to get at the real culprits. Eventually, the Revenue Commissioners agreed to write off the tax bill for £536.
The Southern Health Board refused to pay a medical prescription subsidy to a cohabiting couple until the couple had spent more than £64 a month on medicines. A married couple in the same circumstances were entitled to assistance after paying the first £32.
The board told the Ombudsman it was complying with Department of Health and Childcare guidelines. When the Ombudsman raised the matter with the Department it took the view that there was no clear directive on the issue.
The Department decided it would be reasonable to follow the practice of the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and treat the co-habitees as a married couple. The complainants found that they were entitled to a refund of £1,000.
A widow had £120 deducted at source from her pension to meet part of a disputed hospital charge by the North Eastern Health Board. The board had made the deduction even though the charges related to her dead husband. It was possible to make the deduction at source as the woman was a former board employee and was in receipt of an occupational pension.
The widow had argued that the charges were a matter for the executors of her husband's will, but the NEHB began making deductions at the rate of £20 a week from her pension. The Ombudsman felt the NEHB action was an abuse of power and it should not have exploited the widow's position as a pensioner to reclaim the disputed charges.
The board accepted that its action was untenable and refunded the £120 already deducted.
A widow was refused a pension because her late husband's contributions were one short of the mandatory 156. She complained to the Ombudsman on the basis that the Department had miscalculated her husband's insurable employment.
The initial inquiry by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs had established that the dead man's records were incomplete. Another two contributions had been identified, which would have entitled his widow to a pension, but the Department had failed to amend its original decision.
The reasons for the mistake remained unclear. But when the Ombudsman brought the error to the Department's notice it accepted that the widow was entitled to a contributory pension and paid her arrears of £1,829.