The High Court has ruled that an appeals officer applied the wrong legal test when reviewing a refusal of carer’s allowance, and said the reasons given for the decision were inadequate. It ordered that the February 2022 decision be quashed.
The applicant, identified in the judgment only as “T”, sought judicial review of a decision that left his appeal disallowed. His original application, received by the Department of Social Protection in May 2018, concerned the care he provided to his partner, anonymised in the judgment as Ms X.
The application was refused in January 2019 because the deciding officer found that the statutory requirements for full-time care and attention were not met. An appeals officer dismissed the applicant’s appeal in September 2019. After further correspondence and reviews, that officer issued the decision now challenged on 4 February 2022 under section 317 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005.
The High Court found that the 2022 decision’s wording showed that the officer had assessed Ms X’s care needs at the time of the review. It referred to medical evidence from 2021 and 2022, including a pain consultant’s opinion that she required continual supervision and frequent assistance. The officer concluded, based on the entirety of the medical evidence, that she did not meet the statutory test, while acknowledging she might need help with daily activities.
The court said the relevant question was whether Ms X met the statutory test when the allowance claim was made in 2018. It rejected the appeals officer’s later affidavit explanation that he had applied that test, finding that it contradicted the decision’s terms. The court also found that the decision did not adequately explain its treatment of a GP letter from September 2021, which it had described as evidence of Ms X’s current diagnoses and need for assistance.
The Minister argued that the applicant should have pursued other routes, including a review by the Chief Appeals Officer or a statutory appeal. The court rejected that objection in the circumstances, noting that the February 2022 decision did not tell the applicant of a further appeal route and that the statutory appeal was limited to questions of law.
The judgment grants judicial review by certiorari, quashing the 4 February 2022 decision. It does not quash the earlier decisions. The parties were asked to agree a draft order by 25 January 2024; the court’s preliminary view was that costs should be awarded to the applicant, subject to submissions if the parties could not agree. The judgment was furnished in unapproved form, with publication pending responses on proposed anonymisation.