Frequent Child Benefit residence checks

wailim_2002

Over the last 15 months, my wife has received a 'Residence check' form four times.

I've question the Child Benefit section on this and they assured me this was done at random and that everyone was getting them.

However the only people I know who are getting them are families where one or both parents are non Irish citizens.

I am Irish, while my wife is Spanish.

Are child benefit section discriminating based on nationality?

GerardKeating

wailim_2002 wrote: »

Over the last 15 months, my wife has received a 'Residence check' form four times.

I've question the Child Benefit section on this and they assured me this was done at random and that everyone was getting them.

However the only people I know who are getting them are families where one or both parents are non Irish citizens.

I am Irish, while my wife is Spanish.

Are child benefit section discriminating based on nationality?

We got one as well, baby only 8 months only, and we got one about a month ago.

It might be agrued that a non-national is more likely to leave the country than a national...

snubbleste

The Dept. has stepped up checks on child benefit claimants to 4 times a year from people who have moved to ireland from another country.

Mena

They're targeted at us non-nationals. I don't see it as a problem (except it's a pain to fill in), I'd hate to see my tax money going to Child Benefit for non-existent children or children not in the state (though this point could be argued if the child is Irish).

We sent our latest one out this morning, 2nd one this year already.

professore

Yes they are only for non-nationals. My wife who has been living and working here since 1998 and is an EU citizen with a husband and 3 kids who are all Irish citizens gets them as well. Why is she more of a flight risk than an Irish national? Discrimination of the highest order.

wailim_2002

snubbleste wrote: »

The Dept. has stepped up checks on child benefit claimants to 4 times a year from people who have moved to ireland from another country.

Hi How do you know this? I'm on hold on their queue on the phone to hear this for myself.

My wife is fuming. Shes lived in Ireland for more than 10 years now. Kids have irish passports etc. She'd become a citizen if it didn't cost 995 euro... but thats still not
the point here.

As far as I am concerned if everyone, regardless of race, nationality, religious belief are not receiving these forms with the same frequency then this could be illegal discrimination.

Mena

welfare.ie wrote:

Since July 2008, the frequency of mail shots to validate continued entitlement to Child Benefit has been doubled, to 3 monthly intervals for EU worker customers and 6 monthly intervals for resident non-national customers. Between July and November 2008, a total of 4,963 Child Benefit claims have been suspended and it is estimated that a further 1,100 claims relating to December will be suspended. Of these it is projected that some 2,400 will have their claims terminated, resulting in a potential saving of €20 million.

Source

wailim_2002

Is there any known way to avoid the mail shots?

I mean its handy for them to electronically transfer the money into the bank account but
if my wife had to go to the post office with the kids and show passports everytime, she would prefer that.

The trouble for us is our kids are not well and do not attend school. As we cannot reply on the form with the standard answer, we then get a 2nd form requesting confirmation from doctors or gardai etc... people that don't even know us actually... its ridiculous.

Mena

Avoid them? I don't know to be fair. Perhaps if you registered for CB in your own name, and not your wifes, or does it have to be in the mothers name?

BeQuiet

professore wrote: »

Yes they are only for non-nationals. My wife who has been living and working here since 1998 and is an EU citizen with a husband and 3 kids who are all Irish citizens gets them as well. Why is she more of a flight risk than an Irish national? Discrimination of the highest order.

Its not discrimination.
Its our government doing their job (at last) and trying to stop people who are at high risk of defrauding us of money (our tax money - that you and i are paying) . They need to keep this up, and expand it.

If you want to get government money - dole / CB / anything else - you need to do everything that the state asks of you to get it.

We the people are paying that money out - its not FREE money - and we dont want it stolen by anyone ... only people 100% entitled to it should get it .

The aim is to stop fraud by targetting these measures at people who are most likely to defraud the state. And that is fine with me ....

To complain about it is the same as asking the Gardai to spend as much time patrolling streets of low crime areas as high-crime. You put the effort in where it gets results.

mickoneill30

BeQuiet wrote: »

Its our government doing their job (at last) and trying to stop people who are at high risk of defrauding us of money (our tax money - that you and i are paying) . They need to keep this up, and expand it.

+1

If they don't do it then we keep hearing stories about how easy it is to rip off the system. If they do, do it then it's discrimination. Should the government check every Irish mother too? Maybe they should, maybe they do. Where should they prioritise their checks though?

If you don't want the checks I suppose you could always tell them where to shove their money.
Hint, my direction would be nice. I'll fill in whatever forms they want

wailim_2002

Hi,

Don't get me wrong. If there is fraud it should be stopped. How they do it is another matter and I'd personally rather they showed some sensitivity.

Effectively they are casting suspicion on people based on nationality. Today its child benefit and job seekers etc... but as you can see from some of the posts here that seems a little racist to me as it has the effect of setting us against one another.

Thats what discrimination does.

In the case of CB, why not do like I said and remove payment direct to bank accounts? If you are not in the country it would certainly be a pain to keep coming back on every 2nd Tuesday for CB, and every other week for Dole now wouldn't it? But it wouldn't be discrimination.

wailim_2002

mickoneill30 wrote: »

+1

Should the government check every Irish mother too? Maybe they should, maybe they do. Where should they prioritise their checks though?

Yes they should, but the article a couple of posts before yours, suggest that they check 'EU worker' every 3 months, Resident Non-Citizens every 6 months... and makes no mention of Irish citizens who could be living in GUAM

mickoneill30

wailim_2002 wrote: »

In the case of CB, why not do like I said and remove payment direct to bank accounts? If you are not in the country it would certainly be a pain to keep coming back on every 2nd Tuesday for CB, and every other week for Dole now wouldn't it?

Child benefits not just for unemployed people though (at the moment). It'd be a pain in the ass for thousands of working moms having to go to a local post office to pick up the money.

mickoneill30

wailim_2002 wrote: »

Yes they should, but the article a couple of posts before yours, suggest that they check 'EU worker' every 3 months, Resident Non-Citizens every 6 months... and makes no mention of Irish citizens who could be living in GUAM

For the same resources they could use to catch that one Irish person in Guam they'd probably catch 10 non citizens. Obviously we'd want all of them to be caught but while they're working towards that I'd prefer if they'd concentrate where they'll get the most return for the state.

wailim_2002

mickoneill30 wrote: »

...while they're working towards that I'd prefer if they'd concentrate where they'll get the most return for the state.

But if they apply the law, it makes no difference who they catch first.

They have legal entitlement to claim back overpayment and this is clear to those defrauding the state.

This is not a race against time. It should be a carefully planned permanent campaign that applies the law fairly to each and every recipient of child benefit regardless of race, colour, nationality or religion.

So again, why discriminate?

mickoneill30

From the article linked to above.

"Over 560,000 social welfare claims were reviewed in the past year"

They can't have all been foreigners. Just to clarify here. Are they actually concentrating on non resident people?

wailim_2002

mickoneill30 wrote: »

From the article linked to above.

"Over 560,000 social welfare claims were reviewed in the past year"

They can't have all been foreigners. Just to clarify here. Are they actually concentrating on non resident people?

But what exactly does reviewed mean? Does it mean all 560K received Residence Survey forms or ...

Does it mean 560K were examined and divided into:

400K Irish Citizen claims, 100K EU Citizens resident in Ireland claims and a further 60K 'EU workers' and then treated differently?

I hope not the latter! The irish law was changed to stop incidence of discrimination just like this.... Read the first few paragraphs of this...

http://books.google.ie/books?id=NskGBmUS2mkC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=irish+constitution+racial+discrimination&source=bl&ots=yUmcVRCBIQ&sig=PCkTGNxCgZ6shtyVsPBOg7-LXNI&hl=en&ei=sqpUSo3iLorH-Qawwt2WDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

ardmacha

It should be a carefully planned permanent campaign that applies the law fairly to each and every recipient of child benefit regardless of race, colour, nationality or religion.

Any fraud detection mechanism should be applied in circumstances where fraud is more likely to occur, no doubt statistically children of foreigners are more likely to leave the country than others. However if the OPs wife has been here for 10 years then sending forms several times a year reflects a lack of sophistication in the system. The time processing these would be better spent on a more targeted approach.

wailim_2002

ardmacha wrote: »

Any fraud detection mechanism should be applied in circumstances where fraud is more likely to occur, no doubt statistically children of foreigners are more likely to leave the country than others. However if the OPs wife has been here for 10 years then sending forms several times a year reflects a lack of sophistication in the system. The time processing these would be better spent on a more targeted approach.

Cant agree with that.

There are many variables that can be used to detect fraud in various circumstances but the state has effectively prohibited itself and its structures from using the typically controversial ones of Race, Religion, Colour, Nationality .... etc etc

The banks receiving state benefit into accounts could be compelled to notify a hotline of accounts where all ATM withdrawals are international. V Simple and again non discriminatory!

Why do people keep defending the discriminatory methods? Lack of sophistication is not an defense here.

IT Loser

professore wrote: »

Yes they are only for non-nationals. My wife who has been living and working here since 1998 and is an EU citizen with a husband and 3 kids who are all Irish citizens gets them as well. Why is she more of a flight risk than an Irish national? Discrimination of the highest order.

If your children are Irish, and the Childrens Allowance is being spent on them, then they are effectively checking up on Irish children.

IT Loser

mickoneill30 wrote: »

For the same resources they could use to catch that one Irish person in Guam they'd probably catch 10 non citizens. Obviously we'd want all of them to be caught but while they're working towards that I'd prefer if they'd concentrate where they'll get the most return for the state.

Definitely. Its all a matter of setting your hooks to catch fish you can fry.

At the end of the day, the children are Irish, a point which is usually repeated ad nauseum when it suits.

And if the allowance is being spent on the children, who are Irish, again the point of "discrimination" is extended once more.

Furthermore, as the payments have not been stopped, I fail to see how you can actually show discrimination.

Mena

wailim_2002 wrote: »

The banks receiving state benefit into accounts could be compelled to notify a hotline of accounts where all ATM withdrawals are international. V Simple and again non discriminatory!

Data Protection Commissioner would have a field day with that one!

ardmacha

If the Gardai are looking for a rapist, should they question elderly ladies just to show that they are not discriminating. No, they should direct their resources to catch the criminal. Likewise resources should directed to catch fraudsters.

IT Loser

Mena wrote: »

Data Protection Commissioner would have a field day with that one!

And no sooner did the ATM transactions of someone with a vaguely foreign sounding surname come under scrutiny, then off we would go again with the discrimination claims.

BeQuiet

[quote=

Originally Posted by wailim_2002
The banks receiving state benefit into accounts could be compelled to notify a hotline of accounts where all ATM withdrawals are international. V Simple and again non discriminatory!

[/quote]

Mena wrote: »

Data Protection Commissioner would have a field day with that one!

Why? No reason why our government cannot request that data if data is help for a specific reason (fraud detection) and is protected, and only used for that purpose, and deleted then when no longer needed.

This is exactly what they SHOULD be doing!

wailim_2002

I have raised a question on this matter with the Equality Authority.

After reading their Frequent Q&A section, there is no obvious 'exemption' under which the department of social and family affairs could justify targetting different sections of the community differently... at least none that I could find.

This is the email address I wrote my question to:

info@equality.ie.

I would suggest anyone else who is receiving these forms on a regular basis, also highlight their anger to the same email address above.

Maybe we can do something about it.

IT Loser

wailim_2002 wrote: »

I have raised a question on this matter with the Equality Authority.

After reading their Frequent Q&A section, there is no obvious 'exemption' under which the department of social and family affairs could justify targetting different sections of the community differently... at least none that I could find.

This is the email address I wrote my question to:

info@equality.ie.

I would suggest anyone else who is receiving these forms on a regular basis, also highlight their anger to the same email address above.

Maybe we can do something about it.

Can you show damage/loss as a direct or indirect result of what the Dept. Of Social Welfare is doing??

wailim_2002

?

You don't need to show damage or loss to make a complaint of discrimination, only that you have been treated differently because of your race,religion,nationality,sex etc

I am not seeking damages or retribution. I am only seeking for DSW to stop this policy or balance it by sending the mailshots to all 'customers' every 3 months if they feel it is so reasonable to do so.

I still believe the bank is the key. The govt already has the bank withold dirt tax and report fraudulent transactions so there is a precendent and the good thing is it would apply to everyone equally.

IT Loser

wailim_2002 wrote: »

?

You don't need to show damage or loss to make a complaint of discrimination, only that you have been treated differently because of your race,religion,nationality,sex etc

I am not seeking damages or retribution. I am only seeking for DSW to stop this policy or balance it by sending the mailshots to all 'customers' every 3 months if they feel it is so reasonable to do so.

I still believe the bank is the key. The govt already has the bank withold dirt tax and report fraudulent transactions so there is a precendent and the good thing is it would apply to everyone equally.

http://www.senatordavidnorris.ie/blogger/2008/12/social-welfare-miscellaneous-provisions_18.html

Senator David Norris: I concur with Senator Fitzgerald. I am aware that there has been a problem for some time and it has been accepted practice that processing claims takes eight to ten weeks. The Department gave an explanation and stated that people receive an immediate gratuity or some other payment from their employer to tide them over. It seems harsh that people should be placed in this position.
The issue on which I ask for further information is recent newspaper reports, which I presume may have some substance as they appeared in reputable newspapers, that some of the Polish workers who were formerly employed here are flying over on cheap flights and collecting social welfare payments as if they were still resident here. I do not want to tar all Polish workers as I believe only a small minority is involved, as is the case in every community. There is, therefore, nothing anti-Polish in raising this issue. If, however, the reports are true, it is an abominable practice because it diminishes the pot for the rest of those experiencing difficult circumstances during a period of economic turbulence. Does the Minister have further information on the matter?

Thats David Norris, who is a gay Human Rights campaigner, basically admitting that there is good reason for us to be wary of potential rip-offs.

I would say this to you: if you are getting the money, and are being asked to do no more than fill in slips of paper, just keep doing it and be happy. Dont get all politicised.

Accusations of discrimination are so 2000 and 2001.

wailim_2002

Yeah I know him. Hes a frequent commentator on the last word. Generally a good guy with well spoken comments. Don't always agree with what he says though.

Listen... damn right we should do something.

Did I say we shouldn't do anything?

Did the above person say we should discriminate?

There are better ways than this.

IT Loser

wailim_2002 wrote: »

Yeah I know him. Hes a frequent commentator on the last word. Generally a good guy with well spoken comments. Don't always agree with what he says though.

Listen... damn right we should do something.

Did I say we shouldn't do anything?

Did the above person say we should discriminate?

There are better ways than this.

I dont think the welfare department have ever come out of a dispute on grounds of racism, discrimination etc with anything less than flying colours.

I know you will disagree, as you have already, but its an archaic system, that hits some and not others.

I can promise you that there are non-national couples who are not receiving any letters at all {even though they maybe should be}

My sister {Irish citizen etc} used to get the same form twice-over. Know what she used to do? Fill them both in and send them both back.

By all means, keep your options open, but play the game whenever you can. If you get a form, take a note of it, the date etc, fill it in, send it back, and keep on trucking.

Bomany

My wife who is Irish is getting these forms every three months. The only reason that I think we are being targetted is that I work in Northern Ireland (we live in Donegal) . I fail to understand the logic of this. My wife works in this jurisdiction and has done so for all her working life. If we get another one I am making an official complaint. We are both Irish citizens born and bred here.

GerardKeating

IT Loser wrote: »

I would say this to you: if you are getting the money, and are being asked to do no more than fill in slips of paper, just keep doing it and be happy. Dont get all politicised.

Accusations of discrimination are so 2000 and 2001.

One valid reason to worry about this is the Irish Postal system, if your letter gets lost in the post, sunnenly no child benefit...

The_Conductor

ardmacha wrote: »

Any fraud detection mechanism should be applied in circumstances where fraud is more likely to occur, no doubt statistically children of foreigners are more likely to leave the country than others. However if the OPs wife has been here for 10 years then sending forms several times a year reflects a lack of sophistication in the system. The time processing these would be better spent on a more targeted approach.

Any fraud detection mechanism is going to focus on those areas where there is a greater likelyhood of fraud perceived. Its the exact same in the Revenue Commissioners when they are selecting candidates for audit. Which group of people are more likely to be non-compliant? This is not discriminatory (its annoying, but its not discriminatory). If you're unhappy with this- you can try to normalise your situation.

If your children are not attending school- get documentary evidence of this that can be photostatted ad nauseum- and sent to whomsoever requires evidence.

If your kids are chronically ill- get documentary evidence once again. I've been there done that. Its not an issue.

If you are not willing to accept that you are part of a group that represents a greater risk to the state- you do have the option of not claiming social welfare entitlements- but thats cutting off your nose to spite your face.

You can make things a lot easier on yourself- than simply looking for a scapegoat to blame.

The_Conductor

GerardKeating wrote: »

One valid reason to worry about this is the Irish Postal system, if your letter gets lost in the post, sunnenly no child benefit...

This is making excuses. Contrary to popular belief- the Irish postal system, while not being the fastest, has an excellent deliveries record. It is extremely unlikely that a letter is going to get lost. I never thought I'd see myself defending An Post......

matt007

OK OK
We are both from the Uk and have lived in ireland now for 12 years.
We own our own home
We are both in full time employment in middle management jobs.
we have three children in school

We have been receiving the letters since 2008 as part of the self proclaimed
"Crackdown on Migrant Workers" that the Child benefit section are operating.

The last letter. we did not receive and we have had our payments stopped just as our eldest changed schools and the money was intened to pay 500 which is required for his year.

We were left in the embarrasing situation of having to ask the school to wait as we did not have the money.

Now this is bad enough...

But what really hurts is the comments made here and in fact even by our friends.. I mean.. migrant workers.. how do we fit into that catagory?

It is painfull that peoples comments are so ignorantly naive, and I won't name names, but for goodness sake.

"you have to target the right blah de blah"... scollobs

Maybe the guards should have stopped and searched Mohammed ali on his recent trip through Ennis.. We all know that these black guys are statistically more likely to be drug dealers.

Or maybe.. and I know this is stretching it.. but hey.. where do you draw the line..
Let's make all foreigners wear a star on their clothing so that the guards can stop them and check their paperwork at checkpoint.. now does that remind you of any recent culture????
I suppose we could start a whole other thread and have every one incesed about symapthies to the third reich during the second world war.....


Or... maybe....

Now this is just me..

Why don't the f*cking child benefit section just cross check records with the school.. (All of our children have PPS numbers and the schools have records of this)
Or check mine and my wifes PPS numbers and find that we pay almost 15k a year in tax and are both fully employed. which would totally avoid any of this issue...

This would also catch out all the Irish Nationals (and there are quite a pretty number of them) that are living aborad and still claiming social welfare and child benefit.. Or maybe single mothers that live with a partner and claim the 230 a week that I supplement out of my taxes...

Damn I could go on all night..

Maybe you're right.. let's blame the foreigners...
I mean we all may need those ****ty jobs that no one wanted to do during the boom years and shipped em all over here so that we could be waited on...

Now... I know I may have been harsh... but to all of you who are defending these actions think on.... How many of you have had to go into the school and ask for time..

Migrant Workers... Hah!!!

Where do we draw the damn line..

BeQuiet

matt007 wrote: »

Why don't the f*cking child benefit section just cross check records with the school.. (All of our children have PPS numbers and the schools have records of this)
..

That would be an excellent suggestion ... except you assume that the Dept Of Education could assemble the PPS numbers from all of their schools... they dont even know how much they are spending on prefab classroom rental ... they are basically incompetent , so asking them to do that - while it sounds reasonable - would be totally outside their abilities .... and then to put in a process to continually feed a list of student PPS numbers to say the Dept of Social Welfare .... fugeddaboutit !!!

yabadabado

Why don't the f*cking child benefit section just cross check records with the school.. (All of our children have PPS numbers and the schools have records of this)

Your children dont have to be in school to recieve CB ,they dont even need to be living in this country so i reckon that rules out that idea.

Vico1612

Anybody else received the new form which requests your employer details and stamp > :mad::eek:

Worse than the fecking Spanish inquisition

Kotek Besar

Vico1612 wrote: »

Anybody else received the new form which requests your employer details and stamp > :mad::eek:

Worse than the fecking Spanish inquisition

We received a new form but, as far as I can see, it's the same as last year's. Doesn't ask for employer details as I recall (we posted it back already).

It does ask for Stamp number, but their is no box to tick for Stamp 4 EUFam. So I ticked "other" and wrote Stamp 4 EUFam by hand.

Xiney

I think comparing having to fill in your employers details and have them stamp it to the spanish inquisition is overly dramatic and isn't helping your case, Vico1612.

noaddedsugar

I've been living in Ireland for 18 years and recently received one of these forms for the first time. The form as was sent to my old address as admittedly when I moved a month earlier I never changed my address with them. My payment was stopped. I rang them and was told so send in proof of address and a letter from my GP. I did. Roll on the next month and still no child benefit I rang again to be told that they must have "lost" my documentation. I have sent it in a further four times both myself and through my local social welfare office and each time I am being told that they haven't got the documents. Can someone tell me how a department that cannot keep track of documentation are going to be able to do these checks every 3 months without screwing up along the way? I am now without child benefit for the third month in a row. I spent an hour trying to get through to them this morning only to be told to send the documents in again. I cannot afford to go three months without child benefit. I am at my wits end with these incompetent idiots, short of hand delivering the thing to Donegal how am I supposed to get my claim reinstated?

The_Conductor

Get a name for the person you are talking to- and register the documentation to their attention.

They are totally snowed under- to be fair to them- and Personnel in DSFA have appealled to the Department of Finance for more staff. A circular has issued to all currently serving civil servants seeking CO and SO grade staff who are willing to move (via PAS).

It really is a case of register all correspondence and send it to them pronto. There is a massive backlog.

O.A.P

GerardKeating wrote: »

One valid reason to worry about this is the Irish Postal system, if your letter gets lost in the post, sunnenly no child benefit...

Which happened us yesterday:mad:

angelfalling

View Post
One valid reason to worry about this is the Irish Postal system, if your letter gets lost in the post, sunnenly no child benefit...

Same here. And trying to get through to anyone on the phone is a nightmare. Called and on hold 3 times for over 30 minutes just to have the call dropped. :mad:
And I'd swear every time I turned around I was mailing off that form, at least 4 times in the last few months.
Just had a baby this week as well so really bad month for our child benefit to suddenly not show up in the bank account!

Portia 27

I find this very interesting as i know a man who has been claiming child benefit for years, yet the children do not reside with him. When the Child Benefit people realised the fraud, they decided it would cost too much to prosecute.

That being the case all people should be treated equally and forms filled in.

c4cat

BeQuiet wrote: »

Its not discrimination.
Its our government doing their job (at last) and trying to stop people who are at high risk of defrauding us of money (our tax money - that you and i are paying) . They need to keep this up, and expand it.

If you want to get government money - dole / CB / anything else - you need to do everything that the state asks of you to get it.

We the people are paying that money out - its not FREE money - and we dont want it stolen by anyone ... only people 100% entitled to it should get it .

The aim is to stop fraud by targetting these measures at people who are most likely to defraud the state. And that is fine with me ....

To complain about it is the same as asking the Gardai to spend as much time patrolling streets of low crime areas as high-crime. You put the effort in where it gets results.

BeQuiet wrote: »

The aim is to stop fraud by targetting these measures at people who are most likely to defraud the state. And that is fine with me ....

So what you are saying is that non-Irish are more likely to defraud the state welfare system?

Portia 27

c4cat wrote: »

So what you are saying is that non-Irish are more likely to defraud the state welfare system?

In the case I am aware of - the person is Irish.

If the irish Gov is only checking up on non Irish- then that is discrimination- considering we are supposed to all be part of EU.

c4cat

BeQuiet wrote: »

That would be an excellent suggestion ... except you assume that the Dept Of Education could assemble the PPS numbers from all of their schools... they dont even know how much they are spending on prefab classroom rental ... they are basically incompetent , so asking them to do that - while it sounds reasonable - would be totally outside their abilities .... and then to put in a process to continually feed a list of student PPS numbers to say the Dept of Social Welfare .... fugeddaboutit !!!

Our Child benefit was stopped due to the fact I had moved and even after informing my local welfare office of my move. When I called the Child Benefit section to get the benefit reinstated, they just called my child's school to find out if she was attending.....happy to find she was attending the school, then the child benefit was imm reinstated

Kotek Besar

c4cat wrote: »

Our Child benefit was stopped due to the fact I had moved and even after informing my local welfare office of my move. When I called the Child Benefit section to get the benefit reinstated, they just called my child's school to find out if she was attending.....happy to find she was attending the school, then the child benefit was imm reinstated

Did you lose out financially, or was any loss backdated?