Social Welfare

Parents can now avail of nine weeks' paid parent's leave and benefit. Secondary legislation in force from yesterday uses powers under the Parent's Leave and Benefit Act 2019 to extend the number of weeks that parents can take time off work with financial support from the State from seven weeks to ni

The High Court has upheld a decision of the minister for social protection concerning the suspension of disability allowance of a former prisoner, and has refused to strike down s.210(1) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 as unconstitutional. Delivering judgment for the High Court, Ms Just

The High Court has determined that there is no entitlement arising from EU law permitting the child of a migrant worker who has exercised their right of free movement to apply for Irish child benefit in their own capacity. Delivering judgment for the High Court, Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger confirme

Child maintenance payments are now excluded from all social welfare means tests following the commencement of new legislation. The Social Welfare and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024 provides for significant reforms expected to benefit over 16,000 lone parents and help to reduce child p

Law Centre NI has successfully overturned an HMRC decision on the allocation of child benefit in a case involving parents with 50/50 joint custody. The law centre took judicial review proceedings to challenge a decision by HMRC to withdraw child benefit from its client, who was in minimum wage emplo

Human rights lawyer Les Allamby has been appointed to the UK government's Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC). Mr Allamby, a solicitor who has previously served as director of Law Centre NI and chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), is one of six new appoin

The Supreme Court has quashed a decision of the Minister for Social Protection to refuse to grant a widower’s contributory pension to a widowed father of three children and has declared s.124 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 (as amended) unconstitutional in respect of its exclusion

Lone parents will no longer have to prove they have made efforts to seek child maintenance from their child's other parent when applying for the one-parent family payment or jobseekers' transitional payment. The new regulations, signed into effect by social protection minister Heather Humphreys, fol

Legal rights group FLAC has said it is disappointed by a court decision to refuse a widower's pension to a bereaved member of a cohabiting couple with three children, who had lived together in a committed relationship for 20 years but had not married. The High Court last week refused judicial review

The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a discrimination claim brought by an Irish man who was disqualified from receiving a State pension while he served a prison sentence in the State. The claim was based on Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights and concerned the operation

Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal has dismissed a claim that a prisoner’s human rights were infringed when his housing benefit was denied for four months during his period of imprisonment. The court found that there had been no discrimination between treatment of convicted and unconvict

A tribunal has found against the Department of Finance for twice refusing to backdate an appellant’s Disabled Person's Allowance. The tribunal found that the Department's repeated and categorical refusal was an unfair misstatement of the law. The Northern Ireland Valuation Tribunal (NIVT) reli

The Northern Ireland Executive has agreed to introduce legislation to extend the so-called "six-month rule" for terminally ill people accessing certain benefits. The High Court ruled last summer that the requirement for terminally ill claimants to demonstrate that their death can reasonably be expec

A single mother-of-two who was refused access to the one parent family payment on the basis she failed to satisfy the habitual residence condition has succeeded in a review with support from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. The Social Welfare Appeals Office (SWAO) overturned the refus

The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal by the Department for Communities (DfC) in a challenge against the legislation which provides that certain people with a terminal illness can receive welfare benefits without undergoing a full assessment. Handing down the judgment yesterday on behalf of a th