SPARK-Ireland tweetz:
When a pregnant abused mother goes to court and gets a safety order and explains to @welfare_ie why she can’t get maintenance, is it appropriate they then write threatening letters like this? Should vulnerable files not be flagged and protocols put in place?
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it depends. Should her right to privacy regarding the court order be breached to the people that are looking to make there payments?
It’s so difficult to say, isn’t it? But the idea that the department of social welfare is forcing a woman with a safety order to have dependant contact to feed her children is terrifying.
I suppose the answer is to ask the woman if she’s prepared to endorse a limited release of her confidential information for a specific purpose.
This scenario is covered by the existing processes:
she needs to find out how she goes about flagging this with Welfare.
http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/One-Parent-Family-Payment.aspx#guideunm
“Circumstances where efforts to obtain maintenance are not expected to be made
* [snip]
* there is evidence to prove allegations that LR is violent and there is a consequent risk to the claimant in the event of further contact”
Such a boring, obvious know it all.
Another Nigel type troll. Depressing.
How about the Department needs to get its act together to be more responsive to citizens?
She has explained her situation to the Dept. Put money on it this is an automatically generated letter and feck all human interaction occurred.
this. We give out when the State agencies are inefficient, and then give out again when they’re made efficient for the 99.9% (but cause distress in the .1% exception cases).
Can’t win.
Efficient how?
Efficient is doing your job properly, pillock.
Exactly.
People don’t actually type out letters and hand them to the postman. They’re all automatically generated, produced in their thousands on a daily basis and packed on machines. The recipient would has very been the first person who was aware of this letter.
Not everything is a conspiracy
”Not everything is a conspiracy…”
Too true.
These letters began under Joan Burton’s regime.
It was a factor in the ‘Jobstown Incident’.
Perspective is dependant on your point of view.
That’s what wrong with our system. They know who the father is, so if he’s not paying/helping with his child why can’t it be deducted from his wages or welfare. It really is that easy
This is what wrong with people. The father has a duty to pay/help with his child[1].
It really is that easy
[1] the mother has a reciprocal duty to allow the father access, etc.
What’s that got to do with this? It’s a separate issue
Not a great country to be weak, sick or vulnerable in.
Great country for dog lovers though
Why do you say that?
Most of the time the system works – last year we spent €19,800,000,000 on social welfare. 97% of this was given to the weak, sick and venerable (3% was admin costs).
Last year we spent over €13,000,000,000 on Health.
In 2016 we spent over 60% of the State’s income on these two items. And for most people these services work most of the time.
I’m not saying that they are perfect, they are not. And they need to keep improving, but they are not useless.
The fact a country our size spends that proves our system does not work.
This
what? so you think we should spend less on welfare/health and that will be better for the weak, sick or vulnerable?
Can you explain please?
No need for long explanation. We spend to much, its simply wasted. Instead of stopping the waste people like you seem to think just throwing money at a problem that money won’t fix will some how fix it.
The money is there.
It always was.
It’s the unwillingness to spend it beyond committees and quangos that grates.
People make money from Homelessness.
Lots of money.
It’s a game.
They already convinced most of you that the homeless are a collective, to be dismissed as one… as ‘other’s.
You don’t afford them status as individuals because you don’t want to find any affinity with them… it couldn’t happen to you…
It could.
Why don’t you give it a rest Cian? Seriously
Sure it is – free money for the next 18 years, all she has to do is read the occasional letter.
This is a tricky situation and I speak as someone who is currently in possession of a safety order against my soon to be ex-husband. He should be supporting his children. If she is forced to live under the same roof as him (as I am) because only a barring order puts them out of the house, she will be living in a state of hyper-vigilance and I can imagine any thought of having to interact with him will fill her with nothing less than dread. BUT he still has to support his children. She should really still file for maintenance in the DC, she doesn’t have to speak to him for that. If he loses the plot, well that is why she has the safety order and he will see it v quickly turn into a barring order. She may never get money from him but it cant be that you just assume the taxpayer will pick up his tab. Sometimes life is sh*t, we marry morons, we make mistakes, we need to do what we have to do to take control of our own financial situation. I think what I am trying to say is I totally know where she is coming from but I can also see where the welfare office is coming from.
This is an illuminating perspective. Thanks!
Great stance by leo’s boys, no doubt they’ll try and have her locked up for claiming welfare..
Could do with another arrow over that persons PPSN.
Lock her up!
And this “Private and Confidential” advice (identifiable by MRC 7219630P) was disclosed to Broadsheet, why?
I’m intrigued to know more about what you think someone could do with such reference number?