Department of Health: Inflated and Exaggerated Figures for Disability Payments

There now appears to be some confusion over the Department of Health's own figures in relation to the projected cost of widening the Mobility Allowance Scheme and the Motorised Grant Scheme for disabled people.

The Motorised Transport Grant is a payment which is made to claimants once in a 3 year period, to a maximum amount of about €5,000. It is typically only granted in situations where motor transport is needed for a disabled person to access his or her place of employment. About 300 individuals avail of the scheme each year, at a cost of €1.3 million. That's an average of €4,330 per person per year.

The Mobility Allowance is paid at two different rates, with the maximum rate about €208 per month. The allowance is paid to those with severe disabilities, who cannot walk without jeopardizing their health, but who would benefit from increased mobility. About 4,700 people avail of this scheme each year, at a cost of €9.3 million. That is, an average of €1,980 per person per year.

Importantly, both schemes are fully means tested.

Speaking at a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight earlier this month, the Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly, stated that widening the Motorised Transport Grant scheme to bring it in line with equality legislation would cost €200 million over 3 years. Similarly widening the Mobillity Allowance Scheme, he added, would cost €100 million per annum.

According to Kathleen Lynch, Minister of State at the Department of Health, widening the Motorised Transport Grant to bring it in line with the legislation would increase the total number of successful claims from 300 to to 19,250 per year.
Minister Lynch predicts that widening the Mobility Allowance Scheme would increase the total number of succesful claims from 4,700 to 63,500 per year.

In that scenario, using the averages that we have to hand from the current situation, we should project the new total cost at €83.2 million for the Transport Grant, and €125.7 million for the Mobility Allowance payment. This brings the total to €209 million.

Indeed, the Minister for health himself, speaking at the Joint Oireachtas Committee, put the cost at closer to €167 million per year.

These are stark figures indeed, but both are a far cry from the currently cited figure of €300 million per annum.

But further possibilities for reducing these figures exist.

It has been said that the purpose of the Motorised Transport Scheme exists in order to facilitate disabled people in travelling to and from their places of employment.

Why then, should the scheme we widened to the over 66 age group, would one expect an increase in successful claimants from 300 per annum to 19,250 per annum? The Minister seems to be suggesting that there are 19,000 elderly people with severe walking disabilities who would immediately take up employment in the economy.

It is not credible.

There is no way that the Department of Health, or the taxpayer, can afford to pay €300 million per annum for these schemes. Nor should they.

However, it is increasingly looking like they would never have had to, and the Department of Health have ruthlessly inflated their own figures, ignoring means tests and flinging eligibility requirements to the wind.

Calling Time on Universal Child Benefit

A new Eurostat report on child poverty has shown that Irish children under the age of 18 suffer some of the highest risk of poverty in the European Union.

The report ranks Ireland at number 5 out of the 27 EU countries in terms of risk to child poverty poverty.

Those at risk of experiencing poverty live in a household where the income is less than 60% of the net median equivalised income threshold.

Speaking on Tonight With Vincent Browne last night, the omnipresent economist Dan O'Brien commented that the child poverty figures in Ireland persisted in spite of a significant budgetary allocation towards the social protection of children. This is true. 

If we look at the most recent Eurostat figures on social spending aimed at children and families, which include cash transfers and benefits in kind, we see that the Irish allocation is far higher than all other Western European states bar Luxembourg. It is also well above the wider EU average. 

The fact that Ireland spends more on children than the vast majority of European governments, yet its children are the fifth most at risk of poverty in the EU, clearly demonstrates that our child protection system is seriously deficient.

Interestingly, Ireland spends only half of the EU average on protecting its elderly population, and yet these are some of the least at risk of poverty, within their age cohort, in the EU. Only the Czech, French, Dutch and Lux over 65s fare better than their Irish counterparts.

Of course, this apparent contradiction may partially be explained by the fact that Ireland has the youngest population in the European Union, with a small old age dependency ratio, and a rapidly growing younger population with a higher young age dependency ratio. So of course we are going to spend more of our domestic income on our youth, right?

Well, that's still not enough to explain away the problem. While Ireland's Young Age Dependency Ratio is 20% larger than the EU average (table 2.8), we are spending about 40% more than the EU average, and still getting some of the worst results.

In 2011 the state spent just over €2 billion on universal Child Benefit payments.

The universality of such an enormous payment can no longer be accepted, given the dire Eurostat findings in relation to risks of child poverty in Ireland.

Once again, the state is seriously neglecting its most vulnerable children. 

No Public Minded Superman Can Save Us Now

Nor Busy Body, Crank, or Mischief Maker for that matter...

Many were surprised to hear this morning's judgement in the case of Hall v Ireland, whereby a case taken by David Hall, a Dublin businessman, was rejected by the High Court on grounds of locus standi; i.e. that Mr Hall does not enjoy sufficient standing to bring or maintain such a case.

Mr Hall was applying to challenge the legality of Ireland's series of promissory note payments to the European Central Bank on grounds that the Minister for Finance was appropriating public monies without first resorting to a vote of the Oireachtas.

In his ruling, Kearns J, whilst refraining from commenting on the merits or demerits of the challenge in itself, set out that Mr Hall was in no way more affected by the behaviour of the Minister for Finance than was any other citizen. Therefore, the Judge reasoned, Mr Hall did not enjoy sufficient legal standing to bring the challenge before the Court, a challenge which he claimed might preferably be taken up by a member of the Oireachtas.

This is an alarming interpretation of the law of locus standi in Ireland.

It suggests that so long as the suffering pertaining to a potentially unjust act of the Oireachtas or action of a Minister is equally shared among the public, then its very pervasiveness is enough to disbar any one individual from  challenging a perceived invasion of a public freedom. The individual's ability to protect the public interest in the courts is depleted.

This would seem to break new ground in our understanding of the law of locus standi in Ireland, and has gone under-reported and largely ignored in the Irish media.

If the reader will indulge a reductio ad absurdum, I would present the following scenario.

Would the univsersality of suffering were, for example, voting rights to be suspended and the democratic process put out of the reach of the private citizen, be ubiquitous enough to prevent any one private individual or group of individuals from resorting to the courts on grounds of inadequate standing?

We shall have to await the written judgement of Kearns J in this case, or the outcome of any appeal to the Supreme Court,  before answering that question with confidence.
It may be that Kearns J took some other mysterious factor into consideration which he chose not to illuminate on the bench today.

There is one further point to make on the matter of locus standi, and that is its logical solidity.

This legal principle restrains the Court from pronouncing on the validity of a legal argument, based solely on the motivation of those who choose to make that argument. In logic, this is called an Appeal to Motive; that is to say, that the motivations of an individual in bringing a certain argument are entirely irrelevant to whether there is merit or not in the substance of that argument. It is a logical fallacy.

Having said that, it may be understandable that the Judiciary would seek to protect themselves from frivolous, repetitive challenges by "Busy Bodies, Cranks and Mischief Makers" (Inland Revenue Commissioners v National Federation of the Self Employed 1982).

But a more logically appealing solution would be for the Court to seek to protect itself only from those claims which are plainly frivolous in themselves, as opposed to pursuing an illogical focus on the motivations of those who apply to the courts for a legal remedy.

It is of vital importance to the democratic vigour of the state that legal questions in the public interest be open to judicial scrutiny