Returning emigrant’s 6-month wait for welfare

AN Irish citizen who left Ireland to find work and was told on her return that she was no longer eligible for welfare payments is still waiting to receive the financial support six months later.

Mother-of-one Orla O’Connor, 27, from Midleton in Co Cork, left to work in New York in 2002.

As she was 19 at the time of her departure and had not worked full-time in Ireland, the Department of Social Protection did not have a work record for her.