Key Post How to find full information on Social Welfare schemes

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Welfarite

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Many posters are familiar when looking for information of Social Welfare schemes that the official site to access is www.welfare.ie. However, that site is not very user-freindly and, very often, the information given on the schemes is sparse and ambigious, if you can navigate to it in the first place!

Here is a tip.

The 'real story' of how these schemes are operated is 'hidden' in the 'operational guidelines' link which is usually found down the right-hand side of the scheme page you are accessing; these ire the guidelines that staff use when deciding claims and they cover all aspects of dealing with applications, the 'nitty-gritty' of how decisions on all claims are made.

To help posters, below is some of the more popular schemes, with 'Operational Gudielines' links:

One-Parent Family Payments (formerly Unmarried Mother's Allowance)
Family Income Supplement
Child Benefit (formerly Children's Allowance)
State Pension (Contributory) (formerly Old-Age Pension)
State Pension (Non-Contributory) (formerly Old age Pension)
Illness Benefit (formerly Disability Benefit)
Disability Allowance

Back to Education Schemes:

Back to Education Allowance: Second Level and Third Level education option for jobseekers.
Back to College Initiative: 2,500 free part-time college places were made available to certain jobseekers from Sept 2009.
Part-time Education Allowance: Same as above, but for part-time students.
 
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Thanks to Gipimann for this post:

There have been some changes made to the Back to Education Allowance (BTEA) Scheme, operated by Dept of Social Protection, which came into effect from yesterday, 19th July 2010.

The qualifying period (time spent on an appropriate SW payment) for the Third Level Option has been reduced from 12 months to 9 months for all qualifying payments except Illness Benefit which remains at 2 years.

One of the conditions for BTEA was that the applicant was commencing first year of the approved full-time course. This is being relaxed, and persons who meet the other qualifying criteria may now have an entitlement to BTEA if -

- They are granted an exemption from the first year of the course by the college or course provider based on life experience or previous courses.
- They had completed earlier years of the course on a part-time basis while employed and are now unemployed
- They previously dropped out of a course, but have been given leave to return to a second or subsequent year by the college or course provider.

The SW page on Back to Education Allowance hasn't been updated yet, however you can read the press release from the Minister which outlines the changes - there is a link to Press Releases to the right of the SW homepage
 
Hi, Do you have any information about the community welfare officer?
Thanks
 
I was thinking more along the lines of, rent deposits, clothing grants, household grants (white goods) etc
 
Those are all part of Supplementary Welfare Allowance, so the link above applies.

The items you've mentioned are classed as Exceptional Needs Payments, none of them are "grants" in that there is no specific entitlement to any of them.
 
Hi,

These Gov sites are indeed terrible, trying to find a form for my wife.

It's called 'certificate of holiday entitlement - education sector worker' or UP 2(c/d).

My wifes colleague sent her a photo of the form that she got from the Dept.

Even with this info, I cannot for the life of me find anything!!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Ger
 
If your wife works in a school related sector on a contract and not paid for school holidays the department of social protection should be sending her this form. My son got it in the post this week.
 
I don't think these forms are available online. Contact your social welfare office and ask them to send one out. If you can't reach them by phone, email info@welfare.ie

Make sure to put your PPSN on any email/correspondence.
 
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