The High Court has refused a judicial review challenge by a homeless woman who argued that the Department of Social Protection had denied her jobseeker’s allowance because she had no fixed abode.
In a judgment delivered on 21 December 2017, Mr Justice Meenan found that a letter from the Clondalkin Intreo centre in September 2016 could not be read as a decision to refuse the allowance on grounds of homelessness. The applicant was therefore not entitled to the relief she sought.
The Latvian national had moved between friends’ homes, hostels and emergency accommodation, and at times stayed in a DART station. She had part-time work and was required to submit work dockets so the Department could calculate her allowance.
Her file was transferred from the Kings Inn Intreo centre to Clondalkin in January 2016 after she sought to move her claim. The Department said later payments stopped because she submitted work dockets late. In February 2016 she left accommodation in Clondalkin because she could no longer afford it, and later said she was homeless.
The Department suspended her payment in April 2016, saying she was no longer living within the relevant catchment area. It closed her claim the following month after, according to the Department, there had been no further contact. The applicant’s solicitor later asked whether she could claim while homeless. In a letter dated 14 September 2016, a Clondalkin area manager said the earlier claim had been closed and that evidence of residence in the Clondalkin, Lucan or Newcastle area was needed for a new application.
The applicant argued that the letter amounted to an unlawful refusal based on homelessness and that the Department had failed to give adequate reasons. She also claimed a shortfall of about €3,000. The Department said the letter confirmed the closure of the earlier claim, not a decision on a new application, and disputed that homelessness was the reason payments stopped. It also argued that the case was moot because the allowance and any back payments due had since been paid.
The court accepted that a person could be habitually resident in Ireland while homeless, and said administration of the allowance could reasonably require residence within an Intreo centre’s catchment area, without requiring a fixed home address. The applicant had been paid while homeless when she was within the Clondalkin catchment, and was later paid through Dun Laoghaire after establishing a connection to that area.
The judge said the April 2016 non-payment appeared, on the evidence before him, to have resulted from missing work dockets, though this was not stated in the September letter. He concluded that the letter did not establish a refusal because of homelessness and dismissed the claim for the requested judicial review relief. The judgment does not determine the applicant’s claimed €3,000 shortfall.