overpayment question

danney

I recently had to pay back over 2 years JSA which I done in a lump sum in May this year. My question is when I initially signed on I had returned France where I was a PAYE contractor for much of the previous 3 years. Should I not have had jsb at first and this would have lessened my bill and is it too late now to bring this up?

Cushie Butterfield

What reason did DSP give for the JSA overpayment?

When you say you were PAYE in France do you mean tax & PRSI to the Irish Revenue Commissioners & Irish Social Insurance Fund while you were working in France?

If so what class PRSI were you paying? Only contributions paid at Classes A, H and P are reckonable for this JSB purposes. See here: http://www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/PRSI---Pay-Related-Social-Insurance---Contributions-and-Clas.aspx


If you were paying the French equivalent of PAYE & PRSI & your PRSI contribution type would have entitled you to French JSB, you would have had to have made at least one Irish PRSI paid contribution upon your return in order for your French contributions to help qualify you for JSB.

If you were paying the French equivalent of PAYE & PRSI & your PRSI contribution type would have entitled you to French JSB you may at the time have been able to claim a jobseeker's payment there & continue to claim it for up to 13 weeks in Ireland, but you would probably have had to have been claiming it there for a month before you could do that. It may be worthwhile researching it from the French end if that were the case.

At the very least you should ensure that whatever social insurance paid or credited while you were in France are included in your PRSI record. YOu can contact PRSI Records/ EU Records at:

McCarter's Road, Ardarvan, Buncrana, Co. Donegal

Telephone 1890 690 690

or + 353 1 4715898

danney

thanks for reply....I was working for british agency in france and paying class a british national insurance and French tax, however I did not get up an irish stamp on returning home

danney

To make it simpler I paid British prsi. Equivelant for the 3 years prior to returning home ....I was signed on JSA as I did not have a stamp up in ireland and they bypassed jsb....my one house was later assessed against me as I was not living in it

danney

To make it simpler I paid class a British prsi Equivelant for the 3 years prior to returning home ....I was signed on JSA as I did not have a stamp up in ireland and they bypassed jsb....my one house was later assessed against me as I was not living in it hence overpayment....is it done and dusted because i paid in full or could the dept take account of me never having a period of jsb? And maybe give me rebate?...never ever had a period of jsb and it was my first time signing on.... Prior to this I worked and supported myself for 20 years (10 of which were in ireland)

Cushie Butterfield

The thing is you weren't entitled to JSB because you didn't have at least one stamp after you returned to Ireland. The rules are very clear in that respect, so unfortunately it's pointless looking at things from that angle, so it's not as if you were paid under one scheme while being entitled to be paid under another, which may have resulted in a lesser overpayment taking both into account.

You could have appealed the fact that you were overpaid the JSA on the grounds that you couldn't reasonably have been expected to know or notice that DSP had made a mistake in granting your JSA payment by firstly requesting the DSP deciding officer to review their decision & if that wasn't successful by lodging a formal appeal request to the DSP Appeals Office.

As regards timeframes for appeal I don't know if it's still possible as within 21 days of a decision is the norm. My advice is to contact the INOU about the matter as they might be able to advise & help you in relation to the possibility of appealing now.

You can speak, in complete confidence, to an Information Officer in the Information and Advocacy section directly at 01 - 856 0088 , Monday - Friday 9.30 am to 5.00 pm.
- Online:

Use the online Contact Us form on the INOU website - click here
- E-mail:

You can send your query directly to them by e-mail at welfare@inou.ie

danney

thanks again!
I will contact the inou and find out more....didn't realise one stamp could be worth so much at the time...was completely green to the system.

danney

thanks again!
I will contact the inou like you said and find out more....didn't realise at the time ONE stamp could be worth so much!...was completely green to the system.

Cushie Butterfield

Do that. It's perfectly logical to assume that whoever dealt with your claim at the time knew what they were doing & that you were entitled to be paid whatever you were paid. The vast majority of people don't really know the little in's & out's. They just pay their tax & PRSI & naturally assume that they will be entitled to claim on it should the need arise. If a late appeal is possible in your case you can point out that you submitted your claim in good faith & weren't to know at the time that DSP had made an error - how could you?

Have you explored the possibility of claiming any sort of tax refund from French taxation authorities? If you were in the same situation in Ireland i.e. had paid tax to Irish revenue via PAYE, you would probably have been entitled to a tax refund (or partial one) for the beginning of the last tax year that you worked until the time you finished working that year especially considering you were unemployed for the remainder of that year, so it would be worth your while looking in to that also.

I hope that INOU can give you some useful advice. Best of luck & post back as to the outcome one way or the other.

G2ECE

There are PRSI arrangements in place for most if not all EU countries, for an appeal to be successful in this instance, the French or UK employment would have to have been declared at the time of original JSA application and the p45 provided.

Cushie Butterfield

G2ECE wrote: »

There are PRSI arrangements in place for most if not all EU countries, for an appeal to be successful in this instance, the French or UK employment would have to have been declared at the time of original JSA application and the p45 provided.

It would be great for the OP if you were correct!

JSA payments are means tested payments & not dependant on a person's social insurance contribution record regardless of what country they have been paid in. Unlike social insurance payments, social assistance payments are not subject to EU regulations. OP's JSA claim was deemed as overpaid because his property was classed as means & assessed against him because he wasn't living in it, not because of any social insurance contributions record. JSB payments are dependant on a person's social insurance contributions & are covered by EU regulations, but the other eligibility requirements must still be met, one of which is that at least one paid PRSI contribution must have been made in Ireland before the date of claim.

G2ECE

I probably wasn't clear in my first reply, the OP is probably clutching at straws in hoping that they could retrospectively claim for JB to offset a debt, I referred to the original JSA application form because at the time the same application was used for both schemes. In addition to the PRSI contribution issue, I am of the opinion that unless the op presented documentary evidence of the "foreign" employment at the time of the original claim, an appeal is now likely to fail.

danney

still have to contact the inou! I stated my last employers ie the british agency on the application I had no p60 or p45 at the time.. I do now! think it all goes down to the one stamp and if this is an absolute condition!

cee_jay

It is an absolute condition, without the stamp paid in Ireland, you had no entitlement to Jobseeker's Benefit.

From Citizen's Information:

Contributions you have paid in other member states of the EU/EEA will be added to your Irish contributions. If you are applying for Jobseeker's Benefit and need the contributions paid in another EU/EEA country to help you qualify, then your last contribution must have been in Ireland.

From the Jobseeker Benefit operational guidelines:

Contributions paid while working in another EU/EEA State

Aggregation of Social Insurance Records

Article 6 of EU/EEA Regulation 883/2004 provides for periods of social insurance (PRSI) in one Member State to be credited to a worker's social insurance record in another Member State to facilitate qualification for JB.

The person must have been covered by a period of social insurance in the other country.
The person must have paid at least 1 reckonable contribution since the date when s/he arrived or last arrived in Ireland.
Social insurance credited to a person under this Article may be used to satisfy all of the contribution conditions for entitlement to JB.

EU Records Section, Buncrana, Co Donegal are responsible for the request of all EU Records (except United Kingdom cases, which is requested directly by the Local Office).

Details of the person's actual earnings abroad are not sought. Instead, the person is credited with notional earnings (currently €629.42 in respect of each week that s/he worked in the other Member State. These notional earnings are added to any earnings from employment in this State in the GCY when calculating the average reckonable earnings. The sum of both is divided by the number of weeks worked abroad in the GCY plus the number of weeks worked in Ireland in the GCY.