Moya De Paor is a Solicitor at Northside Community Law and Mediation Centre.
Northside Community Law and Mediation Centre (NCL&MC) added 15 new case reports to the Casebase database in 2013 from cases taken by the Law Centre. NCL&MC launched Casebase in 2006 with the aim of providing the public and in particular community organisations with access to Social Welfare Appeals Office decisions in cases taken by the Law Centre. Casebase is the only database of Social Welfare Appeals decisions in the Republic of Ireland.
The Social Welfare Appeals Office do not publish their decisions, apart from a selection of case studies published in their Annual Report. This is why NCL&MC aims to promote greater transparency in the Social Welfare Appeals system through the Casebase project. By providing a database of decisions the Law Centre aims to provide greater clarity on the reasons for an Appeals Officer’s decision, assist the Social Welfare Appeals Office to take a consistent approach to cases, and assist members of the public and voluntary organisations/NGOs in deciding to appeal decisions and in the preparation of appeal submissions.
The decisions published on Casebase relate to a range of social welfare benefits, and are classified under the various types of payments. Individual Casebase reports highlight the rationale for a particular decision, and can assist individuals or NGOs who may have a similar case. All decisions published on Casebase are anonymous. Over 50 cases have been published to date.
One of the case reports published this year (case G0037) involved a challenge to a decision of the Department of Social Protection where the Appellant, a third country national, was refused child benefit on the basis that she did not satisfy the habitual residency requirement because she was not lawfully resident in the State. The Law Centre challenged this decision relying upon the CJEU Zambrano decision. The Law Centre argued that the applicant had an Irish/EU citizen child and therefore was legally resident in the State regardless of whether she had been granted a residency permit by the Department of Justice, and therefore satisfied the statutory conditions in respect of receipt of child benefit. The Appeals Officer held that the Appellant was habitually resident. The Officer awarded her arrears of payment dating from December 2006 for both child benefit and One Parent Family Payment, totalling approximately €16,000.
Case report G0040 details a decision of the Chief Appeals Officer under Section 318 of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 2005 where it was found that the Deciding and Appeals Officers had erred in law by not applying the relevant law correctly to the material facts. In that case the Appellant’s claim for One Parent Family Payment was disallowed. The Appellant re-applied for the OPFP the following year. This was refused as she was employed under a Community Employment Scheme and, due to a recent change in the law, it was no longer permissible to receive payments from a CE scheme and the One Parent Family Payment simultaneously. The Appellant appealed that decision on the grounds that she had been employed under the CE scheme since 2010 and therefore the legislative changes in 2012 did not apply to her circumstances. This appeal was disallowed by way of a summary decision in September 2012. The Chief Appeals Officer revised the decision of the Appeals Officer on the basis of an error in law, as a result of which the Appellant was awarded arrears of payment from February 2012 to June 2013, totalling €13,603.80.
In case report G0044, an Appellant was awarded invalidity pension arrears of €20,000 on the basis of an appeal brought under Section 317 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. The benefit had been refused by a Deciding Officer on the basis that there was insufficient evidence that the Appellant was incapacitated for work. This decision was overturned following an oral hearing and the production of further medical evidence.
A full report of the above cases and other cases added to Casebase in 2013 can be accessed on NCL&MC’s website - www.nclc.ie. If any individuals or NGOs working in the area of social welfare law wish to have a case published on Casebase please contact Moya de Paor at NCL&MC on (01) 8477804.