Illness benefits in Feb

My OH was sick for two weeks in the month of February this year. GP submitted the sick certificate online and we also submitted online application of illness benefit section of social services. Heard nothing back in spite of phone and email follow up. Today she visited them physically and was told her application is denied because she doesn't have enough contributions in 2022.

We are trying to make sense of this rule of not having enough contributions as she was off sick in February? How could you control when to take ill ?

Will appreciate any advice in this matter.

Illness Benefit

Information about Illness Benefit, a payment made to people under 66 who are unable to work because of illness.

www.citizensinformation.ie

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How to qualify for Illness Benefit​

To qualify for Illness Benefit, you must:

• Be aged under 66
• Be medically certified as unfit for work by a medical doctor (GP).
• Have enough social insurance (PRSI) contributions – see below.
• Apply within 6 weeks of becoming ill.

There is no payment for the first 3 days of illness. These are known as ‘waiting days’ (Sunday is not counted as a waiting day.) There are no waiting days if you were getting certain other social welfare payments within 3 days of the start of your illness.

Social insurance (PRSI) contributions​

To qualify for Illness Benefit you must meet 2 social insurance (PRSI) conditions:

1. You must have at least 104 weeks of PRSI contributions paid since you first started work
   and
2. 39 weeks of PRSI contributions paid or credited in the relevant tax year, of which 13 must be paidcontributions. If you do not have 13 paid contributions in the relevant tax year, then 13 paid contributions in one of the following tax years can be used instead:
   • Either of the 2 tax years before the relevant tax year
   • The last complete tax year (before the year in which your claim for Illness Benefit begins)
   • The current tax year
   • or
     
   26 weeks of PRSI contributions paid in the relevant tax year and 26 weeks of PRSI contributions paid in the tax year immediately before the relevant tax year.

The relevant tax year is the second-last complete tax year before the year in which your claim for Illness Benefit begins. For example:

Relevant tax year

• Only PRSI contributions paid at class A, E, H and P count towards Illness Benefit.
• If you were getting long-term Jobseeker's Allowance, Invalidity Pension, Carer's Allowance or Carer's Benefit immediately before applying for Illness Benefit, you do not need to have 13 paid contributions.
• If you were getting Occupational Injury Benefit (OIB) immediately before applying for Illness Benefit you may use the tax year that applied to your OIB claim or the tax year that applies to your Illness Benefit claim, whichever is of greatest benefit to you.

To help you qualify for Illness Benefit, you may use your Irish PRSI contributions and your social insurance contributions from a country covered by EU Regulations or the United Kingdom (UK). Your last social insurance contribution must be paid in Ireland.

OP, I'm not sure why SW are using enough contributions in 2022 , Illness Benefit is assessed on contributions from 2020 for a claim lodged in 2022 , contributions for 2022 should have no relevance.