The Court of Appeal has dismissed claims by two women that their social welfare payments were wrongly reduced by taking into account mortgage payments on their homes made by their ex-partners.
The separate but related cases focused on the interpretation of the phrase “net cash value to the person of his or her annual housing costs” as used in the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims Payments and Control) Regulations 2007.
The first woman, a mother of two and homemaker, applied for the One Parent Family Payment but was told by the Department of Social Protection that her payment would be reduced on account of the fact her former partner paid €1,161 per month towards the mortgage of the home she lived in with her children.
While she made no contribution to the mortgage, the house was jointly purchased by her ex-partner and the woman, who is a qualified nurse, gave up work to care for her children.
She appealed the decision to cut her payment via the Department's appeals system. She argued that since the house she occupied was held in her and her ex-partner's joint names, he also derived a benefit from the payments.
Therefore, she claimed, only 50 per cent of the payments being made by her ex-partner should be taken into account when assessing her means and this would have increased the payment she received.
The second woman, a carer for the son she had with her ex-partner, applied for disability allowance.
However, it was reduced because her ex-partner paid €647 a month for the mortgage on the house she and her son live in and which is in the sole name of her ex-partner. She also paid no rent to him.
Non-cash benefit
The deciding officer in her case found that because the full amount of mortgage payments was made by the ex-partner, this was a non-cash benefit in the hands of the woman.
She, too, sought to have the decision changed through the appeals process. Among her arguments, as also made by the first woman, she said that there had been a different approach to payments made in a previous decision.
Both women separately brought High Court challenges against the Department's decisions. In 2020, the High Court agreed with the Department's decisions.
They then brought appeals to the Court of Appeal (CoA) arguing, among other things, the High Court had erred and that it was incorrect to equate “housing costs” with “net cash value". The Minister for Employment and Social Protection opposed the appeals.
On Tuesday, dealing with the cases together, the CoA upheld the High Court decisions.
Mr Justice Donald Binchy, on behalf of the three-judge appeal court, said the interpretation by the Minister of "net cash value" (of housing costs) was consistent with the literal and ordinary meaning of the words used and yielded an exact result in every case.
The Minister's interpretation was, in his view, consistent with the clear purpose of the relevant social welfare legislation which identified the criteria to be taken into account when assessing the means of an applicant for a particular benefit.
He dismissed the appeals.
