The High Court has refused an application by an anonymised woman to overturn a social welfare appeal decision made without an oral hearing. The court held that the appeals officer could fairly decide the appeal on the documents submitted and that the woman had not exhausted an alternative statutory route to seek a revision.
The underlying dispute concerned a €54,184.10 repayment demand relating to carer’s allowance paid in respect of the applicant’s daughter. A deciding officer’s January 2020 decision found the applicant was entitled to a lower rate from 2014 to 2018 and was not entitled to the allowance from 2018 to 2019. The applicant appealed, and an appeals officer dismissed that appeal on 26 November 2020.
The applicant’s judicial review challenge was limited to the refusal of an oral hearing. Her appeal letter asserted that family means had been calculated incorrectly, that her husband’s means should not count, and that the decision breached EU law, the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 and the Constitution. It also said the deciding officer accepted that the overpayment arose from a mistake and argued that the appeals officer could choose the repayment period. The letter supplied no supporting detail or documents and promised further submissions, which were not provided.
In October 2020, the appeals office invited the applicant to provide further evidence and advised that the officer considered the case suitable for summary determination. The applicant replied that she wished to rely on her earlier letter and looked forward to presenting her case at an oral hearing. The appeals officer then decided the appeal without one.
Justice Niamh Hyland said the relevant test was whether a hearing was necessary to dispose of the appeal fairly. The applicant had not identified an unresolved factual or legal conflict in the material before the appeals officer. Issues later raised in affidavits about property, earnings, the department’s assessment system, family circumstances and the mortgage had not been put to the appeals officer during the appeal. The court said those later matters could not establish that the original decision to proceed without a hearing was unfair.
The judge also rejected the argument that the appeal letter’s reference to a possible lesser repayment required an oral hearing. The applicant had not explained why the repayment should be reduced or provided material supporting that position. The court stressed that requesting a hearing did not give an appellant an automatic right to one, or allow them to reserve relevant evidence for the hearing itself.
The court further held that the applicant should have pursued a revision under section 317 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. That route could have allowed her to submit the new material later included in court affidavits and seek an oral hearing on its basis. Judicial review was not an opportunity for the court to act as the first-instance decision-maker on that material.
The court refused the reliefs sought. It did not decide any application for costs; it said it would hear oral submissions on costs, with 27 July proposed for that hearing.