Treatment Abroad Scheme

Know Your Rights: Treatment Abroad Scheme

Question

I know that medical treatments available in Ireland can be accessed in other EU countries instead. What if I need a treatment that isn’t available in Ireland?

Answer

If you are entitled to public health services that are available in Ireland, it is possible to access these services in the European Economic Area (EEA) and be repaid the cost under the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive.  If you are a public healthcare patient and need treatment that is not available to you in Ireland, you may be able to use the Treatment Abroad Scheme to get the treatment in another country in the EEA or Switzerland. The Scheme may provide help with travel costs for the patient and a travelling companion, where appropriate.  You must be referred for treatment abroad by an Irish-based consultant who is treating you as a public patient. You cannot refer yourself or be referred by a GP. You, and your referring consultant, must complete an application form and include a copy of your referral letter. Your application must be approved by the Health Service Executive (HSE) before you travel or start treatment abroad. You will get a decision on your application by letter, usually within 15 to 20 working days. If your application is not approved, you will be told the reasons and given information on how to appeal the decision.

If your application is approved, the HSE will issue a form called S2 (also known as E112). This authorises treatment abroad so that you do not have to make any payment to the healthcare provider. The treatment you have abroad must be in public healthcare under a registered medical practitioner in a recognised hospital or other institution that accepts the form S2. If you don’t have the S2 at your appointment, you may be charged and not be refunded. Any treatments or consultations that are not pre-approved will not be covered.

For an application form, contact the Treatment Abroad Scheme Office. You can get the contact details for your area by calling the HSE Infoline on Callsave 1850 24 1850 or online at hse.ie/treatmentabroad.

Update 16th June - Know Your Rights: Cohabiting and social welfare payments

Know Your Rights: Cohabiting and social welfare payments

Question

I have applied for a means-tested Jobseeker’s Allowance but I was told that I’m not eligible because of my live-in partner’s earnings. We live together but we are not married and we split our expenses equally. Why is this?

Answer

The Department of Social Protection (DSP) treats married and unmarried couples in the same way when assessing entitlement to a means-tested social welfare payment. It assesses the total income of the household, rather than the circumstances of the individual claimant.

This means that if you are married, or are living with another person in an intimate and committed relationship, the means of your spouse or partner are also taken into account. This is the case even if only one of you is actually claiming a payment. The DSP uses detailed definitions and criteria to assess whether a couple are cohabiting and you can read these online at welfare.ie.

How the means of a couple are assessed differs slightly depending on the payment being applied for. 

For Blind Pension, State Pension (Non-Contributory) and Carer's Allowance, the DSP adds all of your means together and then halves them to get the assessable means for each one of you. For Jobseeker's Allowance, Disability Allowance, and Farm Assist, the DSP adds all your combined means together and then assesses them against the maximum household payment for your circumstances. If your spouse or partner is getting a social welfare payment in their own right, your means are taken to be half of the total means of yourself and your spouse or partner.

Sometimes a certain amount of income, or income from particular sources, is not taken into account. This is called an income disregard. For example, a certain amount of income from employment can be disregarded. 

Further information is available from the Citizens Information Centre 

Update 8th June - Tax Appeals Commission

Question

What is the new Tax Appeals Commission?

Answer

The Finance (Tax Appeals) Act 2015  came into operation on 21 March 2016. This Act gives effect to a revised tax appeals process and established a new independent statutory Tax Appeals Commission (TAC), which replaces the former Office of the Appeal Commissioners. 

The TAC adjudicates, hears and determines appeals against Revenue decisions concerning taxes and duties under the Finance (Tax Appeals) Act 2015, the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 as amended and other related legislation. There are currently two Appeal Commissioners, appointed by the Minister for Finance for a period of seven years.

The main change to the tax appeals process is the requirement that all appeals (other than customs duties and Registration Tax "first-stage" appeals) are now made directly to the TAC and not to Revenue in the first instance. 

The Appeal Commissioners have sole responsibility for accepting or refusing appeals, although Revenue can raise objections to appeals. If both parties agree, the Appeal Commissioners can make determinations based on written submissions (rather than a full hearing). However, you can insist on a hearing if you wish.

By default, all hearings are held in public. However, you can request that a hearing (or part of a hearing) be held in private. To improve the transparency of the appeals process, the Appeal Commissioners are required to publish anonymised versions of all of their determinations. Another significant change is that appeals can no longer be re-heard before a Circuit Court Judge. You can appeal to the High Court on a point of law, but not in relation to the facts.

Expecting a baby in six months

Question

I do night work regularly but I am expecting a baby in six months. Can I stop working at night while I am pregnant?

Answer

Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, every employer is required to carry out a risk assessment for the workplace. This assessment should identify hazards in the workplace, assess the risks from such hazards and identify the steps to be taken to deal with any risks. Now that you are pregnant, your employer should carry out a separate risk assessment for you. If there are particular risks to you during your pregnancy, these should be either removed or you should be moved away from them.

If neither of these options is possible, you should be given health and safety leave from work, which may continue up the beginning of your maternity leave (under the Maternity Protection Acts 1994 and 2004). If a doctor certifies that night work is unsuitable for you during your pregnancy, you must be given alternative work or health and safety leave.

Time spent on health and safety leave is treated as though you have been in employment, and this time can be used to accumulate annual leave entitlement. You are not entitled to leave for any public holidays that occur during health and safety leave. During health and safety leave, your employer must pay you your normal wages for the first 21 days (3 weeks), after which you may qualify for Health and Safety Benefit from the Department of Social Protection.

When you return to work after maternity leave, if there is any risk to you because you have recently given birth or are breastfeeding, that risk should be removed. If this is not possible, you should be moved to alternative work. If it is not possible for you to be assigned alternative work, you should be given health and safety leave. If night work is certified by a doctor as being unsuitable after the birth, alternative work should be provided. If alternative work cannot be provided, you should be given health and safety leave.

Further information is available from the Citizens Information Centre below.

Know Your Rights has been compiled by Boyle Citizens Information Centre which provides a free and confidential service to the public. Tel: 0761 07 6330

Address: Elphin Street, Boyle, Co. Roscommon

Information is also available online at citizensinformation.ie and from the Citizens Information Phone Service - 0761 07 4000

Notice from Landlord to leave

Question

Our landlord phoned to ask us to leave the house we have rented for the last three years because he plans to sell the house. Do we have to accept this?

Answer 

As you have been renting the house for three years, you have what is called a “Part 4 tenancy”, which gives you certain rights. The landlord can only end your tenancy for certain specified reasons. An intention to sell the property within three months counts as a valid reason.

However, a phone call is not a valid form of notice. You must get a written notice of termination, signed and dated, stating the reason for termination and giving you the proper period of notice, which, in your case, as you have rented for three years, is 12 weeks (84 days). When a landlord plans to sell the property, the notice of termination must include a statement that he intends to sell the property within three months after the tenancy ends. The Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) publishes sample notices of termination with the detailed information that is required in various situations. In the case of a planned sale, the wording of the required statement is: “The reason for the termination of the tenancy is due to the fact that the landlord intends to sell the dwelling, for full consideration, within three months after the termination of the tenancy”.

Your landlord must also make a statutory declaration that he intends to enter into an enforceable agreement to sell his full interest in the house. (A statutory declaration is a solemn statement, which must be signed in the presence of someone who is authorised to witness statutory declarations – such as a practising solicitor, a Peace Commissioner, a notary public or a Commissioner for Oaths.) The RTB’s sample notice of termination for a landlord planning to sell contains sample wording for this statutory declaration, which you should receive along with the notice of termination. 

If your landlord is found to have evicted you illegally, he may be required to pay you substantial damages.

Further information is available from the Citizens Information Centre below.

Know Your Rights has been compiled by Boyle Citizens Information Centre which provides a free and confidential service to the public. Tel: 0761 07 6330

Address: Elphin Street, Boyle, Co. Roscommon

Information is also available online at citizensinformation.ie and from the Citizens Information Phone Service - 0761 07 4000

Challenging a school’s policies

Know Your Rights: Challenging a school’s policies

May 2016

Question

My son shaved his head on Saturday and was sent home from secondary school on the following Monday. The school is using school policy to justify suspending him for one week until his hair starts to grow. What can I do?

Answer

All schools should have policies in place to deal with issues as they arise in the normal day-to-day running of a school (codes of behavior, school rules and other policies). These should be provided or made available to parents of children attending the school. If you are unhappy about a school’s policy or the implementation of a school’s policy you can make a complaint to the school. The school should have a formal complaints procedure that you can follow.

The complaints procedure usually involves contacting the principal with your complaint. (The school’s procedures may ask you to speak to another member of staff before speaking with the principal.) If having spoken with the school principal, you are still not happy that your complaint has been resolved you may contact the chairperson of the school’s management authority.

If the chairperson cannot resolve your complaint they should discuss the matter at a meeting of the management authority. The school’s Board of Management is usually the management authority. However, in the case of Education and Training Board schools you should contact the Education and Training Board responsible for the school.

Shortly after reaching its decision, the management authority will let you know its decision on your complaint. This decision ends the school complaints process. The Department of Education and Skills provides information about making a complaint to a school on their website. If you have followed the school’s complaints procedures and you are not satisfied with the outcome you can escalate your complaint about the school to the Ombudsman for Children’s Office. The key criterion for any intervention by the Ombudsman for Children is that the action complained of has or may have adversely affected the child. The Ombudsman can examine any administrative actions of the school, staff or Board of Management including whether the school’s policies have been followed correctly or if those policies are fair. 

Making a Will

A public information presentation entitled Making a Will won’t kill You will be held in King House, Boyle on Wednesday 11th May 2016 at 6.30pm.  The presentation hosted by Roscommon Citizens Information Service (CIC), Roscommon LEADER Partnership and the Older People’s Council, is free of charge and all are welcome.

Topics covered will include: 

• how to make a Will and what will happen if you don’t (on Intestacy)

• Testamentary Guardianship

• Discretionary Trusts

• availing of Tax Breaks

• Taking out probate

• providing for vulnerable relatives

• rights of other family members

• setting up Power of Attorney

• and common pitfalls and useful tips.

The seminar will be delivered by Anne O’Carroll BCL MA of Cascade Training Consultancy.  Ms O’Carroll, who has won national Justice Media Awards from the Law Society for her legal journalism, has over 20 years’ experience in demystifying legal issues for the lay person through training workshops and public information presentations. The Presentation will be delivered in an accessible and jargon-free style, and promises to be highly informative. The aim is to provide clear, concise information on what practical steps to take when making a will and how best to provide for your loved ones.

There will be a Question & Answer session and information handouts will be provided. 

• If you have young children,   a farm or business,   or are a house-owner 

• or are caring for a relative who is dependent or has special needs 

• and you’re worried about what will happen after you are gone, 

• You need to attend this event.

For more information ring Roscommon CIC on 076 107 6380 

or Boyle CIC on 076 107 6330