Social Security

Scholarship awards for PhD students will be excluded from the means test for the blind pension under new regulations. The regulations signed by social protection minister Heather Humphreys and public expenditure and reform minister Michael McGrath follow regulations introduced last March to exclude

Legal rights group FLAC has welcomed the introduction of new social welfare regulations addressing some of their concerns and recommendations in relation to the Covid Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP). The new regulations state that a person will not be required to seek employment outside that occ

There is no clear legal basis for social welfare inspectors questioning passengers on certain flights out of Ireland as a blanket policy, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) has warned. The Department of Social Protection (DEASP) told the watchdog that customers boarding certain flights in recent m

Legal rights organisation FLAC has challenged the legal basis for sanctioning Covid Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) claimants who travel abroad for holidays. Eilis Barry, CEO of FLAC, wrote to Social Protection Minister Heather Humphries after a number of individuals and NGOs contacted the organ

A terminally ill woman who was denied fast-track access to certain benefits has succeeded in a High Court challenge to the definition of "terminal illness" in Northern Ireland. In a decision handed down yesterday, Mr Justice Gerry McAlinden said the requirement for terminally ill claimants to demons

A woman in Northern Ireland is today challenging the legal definition of "terminal illness" after being refused access to special rules designed to fast-track the award of benefits without the need for assessment. The High Court will today hear an application for judicial review from Lorraine Cox, w

The Court of Appeal in Belfast will tomorrow consider whether the Department for Communities breached human rights law by refusing bereavement payments to a man after his severely disabled wife died in July 2017. Michael O'Donnell, who is being represented by Law Centre NI, was refused the benefit o

A man living with his severely disabled partner in a two-bedroom council house should receive full housing benefit because applying the so-called "bedroom tax" breaches his human rights, the UK Supreme Court has ruled. The ruling in favour of "RR" has implications for at least 155 other partners of