Welfare to recoup injury benefits
TWO radical new sections contained in the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2013 will come into operation today concerning the amount of certain illness-related social welfare payments from compensation awards made to plaintiffs as a consequence of non-fatal personal injury claims.
The act provides that, where one of a number of benefits is paid by the department to an injured person who has been compensated, the amount of the payments is to be repaid to the department by the compensator, usually that is a defendant’s insurance company. The relevant payments are: Disablement pension, disability allowance, illness benefit, injury benefit, invalidity pension, and partial capacity benefit.
