Dept. of social welfare demands pension payback

[baguio2007]

An elderly relative has been notified by the Dept. of Social Welfare that she has to pay back money from a pension that should never have been paid out to her.
Basically, what happened was that a year ago, she applied for both contributory/non-contributory pensions. The contributory pension that she was offered was just 60 euro a week. So she took the non-contributory or state pension. It transpired that both were paid into her account but she was not aware that she was getting the second pension. Now they are demanding the money back from a pensioner with limited savings (savings she will need for medical emergencies, etc) despite it being their blunder. She lived according to the monies available in her current account - so this 'additional' money was not saved by her as such.

Are they entitled to do this?

 

[Swallows]

Yes I would imagine that if there was an overpayment they would be entitled to claim it back. It would be surprising if your elderly relative (or someone looking after her affairs ) would not be aware that there was two pensions being paid to her account. If there was some reason whereby she was not aware, then there is bound to be an appeals procedure which she can lodge.

 

[ACA]

Unfortunately even tho it was their error - SW are quite entitled to ask for their money back. If it was my elderly relative - I'd be offering to pay them back €5 a week until it was cleared. Make sure you know exactly how much they are looking for as, its not unknown for SW to keep on taking money after the fact. Dept of Social Welfare should be able to do that for OAP if they can do that for defrauders!!

Why should a little old lady be worrying about the bills cos the SW stuffed up! Try to be with her when she contacts them, so if she gets distressed - you can take over the conversation.

 

[liteweight]

My mother was housebound toward the end of her life. She would have had no idea what was going into her bank account. She just used to ask one of us to withdraw cash for her. If she'd been in the position of the lady above, she would have assumed that the amount going into her account was correct. It wouldn't have dawned on her that they'd get it wrong and so she wouldn't have even asked us to check it!

I agree that she should negotiate 5euro a week or even less as, presumably, her payments are going to go down and she hasn't been able to save anything even when they were at the inflated price.