The Court of Appeal dismissed Brigid Wilton McDonagh’s appeal over whether she could appeal refusals to revise an earlier decision denying domiciliary care allowance for her daughter. It held that the statutory appeal route covered the original decision and any decision that actually revised it, but not a refusal to revise.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy on 22 January 2020, concerned the interpretation of sections 301 and 311 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. The High Court had rejected Ms McDonagh’s challenge to the Chief Appeals Officer’s position that there was no appeal to that office where a deciding officer did not revise an earlier decision.
A deciding officer refused Ms McDonagh’s allowance application on 21 September 2011. She did not appeal within the prescribed period. She later made three applications for revision, on 31 March 2016, 9 August 2016 and 20 December 2016. Each was refused; the final refusal was issued on 23 May 2017. Her solicitor sought an appeal in July 2017, but the Chief Appeals Officer said the time to appeal the 2011 decision had passed and there was no appeal route for a decision not to revise.
Ms McDonagh argued that a refusal after new evidence was considered should count as a decision or revised decision and be appealable. She also argued that excluding such appeals produced an absurd or unfair result. The respondents submitted that the legislation distinguished between an original decision, a revised decision and a refusal to revise, and did not provide an appeal against the last of these.
The Court of Appeal found that section 311’s reference to “the decision” meant the original decision by a deciding officer. Section 301 extended the appeal procedure to a revised decision, which could amend or reverse the original decision. A refusal to revise made no alteration and was therefore not a revised decision. The court also noted that the Act expressly gave the Minister a right to appeal a Chief Appeals Officer’s decision not to revise in certain circumstances, while conferring no equivalent right on other parties.
The court held that the scheme was not absurd: an applicant could appeal the original decision within the prescribed time or appeal a revised decision. It found no error in the High Court’s judgment and dismissed the appeal. The ruling concerned the availability of a statutory appeal against a refusal to revise; it did not determine whether Ms McDonagh’s daughter qualified for the allowance.