Lard knocked out of carer over €87k bill, says husband

THEY have tried seeing the funny side but, no matter which way you look at it, being told to repay almost €87,000 to the state is no laughing matter.

A woman at the centre of a case in which the Department of Social and Family Affairs has asked for repayment of €86,700 it claims she was overpaid as a carer has had “the lard knocked out of her”, according to her husband. She has had to receive hospital treatment linked to stress as a result. The overpayment demand was revealed last week at an Oireachtas Committee.

The woman, from Co Tipperary, who wishes not to be identified, has been in receipt of the carer’s allowance since 1997, for looking after her husband who has had a succession of health setbacks in recent times, including rheumatoid arthritis which sometimes means he cannot get out of the chair. He has suffered a massive heart attack in the past, and on another occasion, acute kidney failure.

Under the terms of that scheme, she was entitled to work a maximum of 10 hours a week outside of the home, and later, when the conditions were changed in June 2006, up to 15 hours a week as a home help in the area, something she was happy to undertake, as almost all her large family had grown up and had left.

The woman worked as a home help for around 17 years, something which brought in £40 (€50) a month. Over the years she looked after as many as 12 people in the locality.

She is adamant she has done nothing wrong, and says she was never told that staying for a few extra minutes, often at the behest of a local district health nurse, could land her with such a bill. When she joined the health board she says she was never given a contract of employment and was never told of the time limit.

“If I had known that sure I wouldn’t have done it. No one ever said anything.” She hid nothing, she filed her tax returns, she filed everything, her husband says. “Why did they wait 16 years to bring this up?”

The letter of October 14 last changed everything. Stressing the conditions which must be met to receive the carer’s allowance, it stated that her receipt of the allowance would be suspended and an overpayment may be assessed against her.

This was “a bolt from the blue,” she says, but nothing could have prepared her for the letter she then received on October 29 from the department. It stated: “This decision [to stop payment of the allowance] creates an overpayment of €86,743, and this sum is recoverable by the department.”

Her husband admits the letter was in the house a few days before she was made aware of it, as they were conscious of the impact it would have on her. The woman appealed the decision and the case hasn’t been heard yet. The carer’s allowance was suspended but resumed after eight weeks. However the missing weeks were not paid. She has since quit as a home help.

In the letter she stressed that “my work with the HSE enables the household bills to be paid, but nothing more. The severance of my carer’s allowance will cause extreme hardship to us”.

“It appears to me that there are two separate sections of the civil service here working in opposing directions,” she wrote. “On the one hand I was being paid the sum of €220 per week to look after my husband and on the other hand, the Department of Social and Family Affairs are now threatening a repayment against the wages I earned looking after people with similar needs.” She argues any overtime was to fill in for a colleague on sick leave or on holiday. The overpayment was calculated from 2001. It has been deducted on the basis of weeks where the average amount of time ‘overworked’ is between 43 and 51 minutes. The dependent child allowance, paid while the woman’s youngest child was completing her studies, was also included in the repayment demand.

“The human element did not come into this at all with them,” her husband says, while she says she feels “a bit betrayed”.

Of the local politicians in the area, the family say that only Labour MEP Alan Kelly took an interest.

According to one of her sons, what has transpired is “scandalous”, and while they have “no intention” of repaying the money, the issue still hangs over them while they vie to repay various loans. “The Government has no common sense — it’s the one thing they couldn’t give them” he says. “How much money has [my wife] saved the state?”

That is a difficult question to answer, but at an Oireachtas Committee meeting last week the Carers Association said carers are estimated to save the state around €2.8 billion every year, providing a service that otherwise would fall to hospitals and clinics.

“As the thing went on, we began to laugh at it,” her husband says, but there is no doubting the seriousness of the matter and the stress it has caused.