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IN 2007 KILENI* came to Ireland with her 14 and 15-year-old daughters as an asylum seeker. She and her two daughters fled South Africa because she feared for their safety following the murder of her husband.
The three were placed in ‘Direct Provision’ accomodation which provided them with food and shelter while their refugee status was being processed.
They were also paid a weekly allowance of €19.10 per adult and €9.60 per child.
In August of the following year, Kileni and her daughters moved to Dublin to stay with a friend, mainly because of her concern about the deteriorating mental health of one of her girls and because conditions in the hostel were unsatisfactory.
The 15-year-old was subsequently hospitalised following a suicide attempt and after discharge from hospital was placed in foster care on a voluntary basis.
In November of that year, Kileni’s application for a Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) was refused. She appealed to the HSE and was again refused before appealing to the Social Welfare Appeals Office which ruled that she was entitled to the allowance of €197.80 a week for her and €24 for her daughter, having left ‘Direct Provision’ accommodation.
Despite this decision and subsequent responses from the appeals office, the relevant Superintendent Community Welfare Officer queried the outcome and decided to pay Kileni the direct provision rate of just €19.10 per week for herself and €9.60 a week for the daughter still living with her.
Kileni had no consistent source of income for herself and her family as she was unable to take up employment pending her application for humanitarian leave to remain in Ireland.
The HSE corrected its position only following intervention by the Ombudsman’s Office and in January 2011 the appeals office decision was finally implemented and an arrears payment of €11,882 was paid to the woman.
However, shortly after the implementation of the decision, the HSE decided to review Kileni’s entitlement and found her to be ineligable for the allowance, pending the outcome of an appeal and again paid her the reduced rates.
Some months later, following another separate appeal, Kileni had her allowance entitlement restored.
In a report, the Ombudsman has found that the HSE had “no proper basis for its actions” and that the “failure caused significant adverse consequences over an extended period for the family”.
“It is quite rare, in the experience of the Ombudsman’s Office, that a decision of an appeals officer would not be implemented in full,” Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly said in her report. “In law, the decisions of a Social Welfare Appeals Officer are ‘final and conclusive’”.
The Ombudsman said that the decision to investigate took account of Kileni’s contention that the very long delay in paying her allowance caused her and her family significant financial hardship and extreme distress.
In the normal course, not having money for food, for rent, for clothing is self-evidently a huge trauma for any family. In the particular circumstances in which she found herself, the trauma for Ms Kileni and her family must have been very significant.
“There was a question as to whether the delay in paying SWA might have exacerbated the mental health difficulties of Ms Kileni’s daughter and whether the delay created an obstacle to that daughter being reunited with her family,” the report said.
In addition, Kileni herself had her own mental health difficulties and was found to be suffering Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome arising from experiences before coming to Ireland. She was attending counselling provided by a support service for victims of torture.
The report recommends that a “time and trouble” or “consolatory” payment be made to the woman of €3,000 by the Department of Social Protection because the allowance is funded through that department.
*This is not the woman’s real name and was used in the report to protect her identity.
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In all fairness that’s a great result.
Excellent
Great news. Congratulations and best of luck to all students beginning college in this difficult time.
To think we were laughing at the UK making a bo**ix of their calculated grades system, we then said hold my beer.
Good stuff. Delighted for those impacted but leaving very should never have been cancelled.
I’d say Simon is not missing the health portfolio these days…
Brilliant outcome. Good luck to all the students involved.
This further disadvantages the LC class-of-2019. Already hit with a new system that yielded record results and so put them at a huge disadvantage w.r.t. their LC-2020 counterparts – they are now further back in the queue because 2020 students were upgraded only (but not downgraded) because of the system errors.
Tens of thousands of them – why is nobody “moving mountains” for them ?
Simon is really a great minister what he has done in 2020! Much respect for him.
It’s a great turn around, but they should not be left out of pocket. Will they be reimbursed for fees already paid to a different college, for books and other items specific to the original course they were offered which they have paid for? Deposits on now useless accommodation?
@Dave Gillen #wearamask #noToRacism: I guess there will be a scramble for accommodation now. Only high end units left!
Good news, though tbf at this late point, they might as well defer.
@willow moon: Why?
Most colleges only started back last week or the week before and are online. the majority of lectures are recorded on blackboard or moodle.
No hassle catching up.
@willow moon: not really, a lot of courses would have started later this year anyway and even if they started the first week of September catching up is definitely doable since there’s a lot of introductory stuff in every course
@Fiona Reidy: results only released on 7th September and CAO on 11th September so they didn’t start first week .
Just out of internet and to clarify, does this mean the initial 424 students that received course places before the coding debacle have now been removed as it were or “squeezed out” fairly? Are they being reimbursed/compensated for their course fees, accommodation, and other expenses by the Department of Education per se??
@Kiern Mcx: Or did the latter 424 students get additional places in the respective courses so the initial 424 didn’t lose out on their places?
A week where this story dominated everything from the Dail to the airwaves one muppet of a TD even called for a full public inquiry costing millions never mind the amount of calls for the Ministers head.
This actually affected only 450 out of 60,000 students and they now all have been sorted within two weeks .
We really do need to cop ourselves on and calm down on the indignant outrage for a small bit.
Not my Daughter! 2 points short for Pharmacy due to downgrade in Chemistry not to mention points through the roof this year! Teacher gave her H1 no word on her appeal she got H2!
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