Childrens Allowance Suspension?

P

Papadoc

Guest
This week the missis went to collect her Children's Allowance, only to be told that it had been suspended. She is not Irish born but has lived here for a number of years.

The department person told her that as a "foreigner", they had sent her a letter back in August checking that she was still in the country. We received no letter so did not reply. Therefore the Childrens Allowance was supended. There was no attempt at a follow up letter or phone call.
We are in the situation of having to effectively re-apply for Children's Allowance, requiring Doctors letters to prove that we still have children etc.

Has this happened to anyone else? Are non-Irish born Childrens Allowance recipients subject to different rules or is it standard practice to check up on everyone occasionally?
 
Not completely on the same track but i'm a single father and got a letter the other day saying i had to fill in the form sent with the letter or i would lose my single parent tax relief. I had 21 days to return the form, which i have done, but i thought it strange as i'm only single 3 years and my kids are 5 and 12.. I'm irish btw..
 
There was a mailshot done by CB last year asking people to confirm their circumstances. Many did not reply and CB was cut-off. It was in the papers that a high % of those that did not reply were people who had left the country and were no longer entitled to CB but failed to cancel claims.
 
i got that letter back in august (could have been july even) as well. thought it was strange, too and wondered if any irish parents got them. i am EU citizen, living here for almost 10 years... - anyway i sent it back, confirmed it all and still get the payment.
i do agree though that they should have tried harder to contact people than just sending one letter. at least a phone call would have clarified if letter was received in the first place. ah well, hoping you guys get your money back asap.
 
alaskaonline said:
i do agree though that they should have tried harder to contact people than just sending one letter. at least a phone call would have clarified if letter was received in the first place. ah well, hoping you guys get your money back asap.
Click to expand...


So how many phone calls would that take then and how much would that cost? Not being smart but I'd imagine they decided to be as cost effective as possible . I'd imagine that there were far more people who didn't reply because they weren't at the address than those who didn't get the letter because An Post "lost" it. What's the percentage of "lost" letters, I wonder?
 
I couldn't tell you how many letters are lost in the post. I can tell you that this one was. I understand that there must be some mechanism to check that people are not abusing the system. However, before cutting people off from an important payment, it should be double checked. I don't think that the cost of a phone call or a follow-up letter for non-respondants is unreasonable.
Secondly, targeting only non-Irish recipients for this check does not make sense. It is also possible that Irish people have emigrated and are still in receipt of payment. Who checks on these people?
 
Papadoc said:
Secondly, targeting only non-Irish recipients for this check does not make sense. It is also possible that Irish people have emigrated and are still in receipt of payment. Who checks on these people?
Click to expand...

Chrisboy is Irish and got a letter about his allowances. We don't know if it was just non-Irish people that were sent the letter.

Sprite
 
Yes but Chrisboy was not referring to Children's Allowance.

I am interested in finding out if these checks are universal or are only being carried out on non-Irish recipients of Children's Allowance (irrespective of how long they have been in the State).
 
We too rec'd the letter in August, which we duly completed and returned. I figured it was normal for them to check every now and again that you acknowledge that you are still entitled to receive the allowance. I think that's fair.

However, my other half is an EU national so perhaps they just targeted this group first of all? Both myself and our child are Irish. Would be interesting to see if they queried recipients who are both Irish. However, I have no problem with them checking up, I pay alot of tax so it's good to see checks being done.
 
Papodoc I suggest you check if the home address for you is the same as the one the department has maybe this is why you never received the letter, also it could be if when you applied originally you were living at a different address.
 
We also got cut off sometime last year because we had moved house and didn't inform them of our new address so we never received the letter. We are both Irish so I think they are just checking that everyone is at their given address which is reasonable. We contacted them as soon as we noticed the first missed payment and it was sorted straight away.
 
Thanks for the link. That does answer my question-looks like I'm statistically more likely to defraud the state.

Hopefully it won't take too long for them to reinstate the payments.
 
I got one of these letter. I had opened it before I realised that is it was actually addressed to a woman who rented our house in 1999 while we lived abroad. She moved to Denmark in late 1999 with her child. I'm guessing she's been getting the CA all this time. I returned the letter and stated that she has not lived in the house since 1999. Hopefully it'll stop now.
 
gabsdot said:
I got one of these letter. I had opened it before I realised that is it was actually addressed to a woman who rented our house in 1999 while we lived abroad. She moved to Denmark in late 1999 with her child. I'm guessing she's been getting the CA all this time. I returned the letter and stated that she has not lived in the house since 1999. Hopefully it'll stop now.
Click to expand...

My wife and I got a letter to confirm our CA entitlements, I am Irish my wife is from another EU state. We both totally agree with this procedure and are amazed at the level of abuse the Irish social welfare system receives both by Irish and Non-Irish people.

The above quote just goes to underline the lack of productivity of the public sector. Why did they not send these letters out sooner and why have a small amount of people received them.

We also did not receive the letter and payment was withdrawn for almost six months. Is there any lightly hood of a back dated payment :D ?

Joejoe
 
We got a second letter to confirm the existence of our children, in less than a year since we got the first. Looks like more inefficiency/make work from Social Welfare, and here I was thinking they were run off their feet.
 
Towger said:
We got a second letter to confirm the existence of our children, in less than a year since we got the first. Looks like more inefficiency/make work from Social Welfare, and here I was thinking they were run off their feet.
Click to expand...

I don't understand. Why is increased control checks on SW payments an inefficiency? Surely this increased checking up is a result of the amoutn of fraud uncovered in the previous mailshot exercise?
 
Welfarite said:
I don't understand. Why is increased control checks on SW payments an inefficiency? Surely this increased checking up is a result of the amoutn of fraud uncovered in the previous mailshot exercise?
Click to expand...


This is especially more important now, seeing as so many are heading home to their own countries.. The amount of people who have their irish bank accounts left open, and benefits being put in must be huge!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top