Disability allowance and FIS

Mumsie211

Hi I recently applied for disability allowance - my husband works in a low paying job and he recieves family income supplement for all of us . He recieves 355 euros a week from his work and 214 from FIS . We don't have any other claims. I'm awaiting a hip replacement and from a medical perspective my doctor said that I will qualify for disability but I'm not sure if I qualify from a financial perspective. Is FIS taken into account as means for disability? I tried looking on welfare.ie but couldn't really understand! What way would it work ?

js35

Mumsie211 wrote: »

Hi I recently applied for disability allowance - my husband works in a low paying job and he recieves family income supplement for all of us . He recieves 355 euros a week from his work and 214 from FIS . We don't have any other claims. I'm awaiting a hip replacement and from a medical perspective my doctor said that I will qualify for disability but I'm not sure if I qualify from a financial perspective. Is FIS taken into account as means for disability? I tried looking on welfare.ie but couldn't really understand! What way would it work ?

We are in kind of a similar situation too and what normally happens afaik is if you get awarded disability that will be added to your husbands wages and counted as means when your Fis gets renewed so you will get it but at a lower rate

Gatling

Unfortunately there's no guarantee you will actually get disability a lot of people get refused at several attempts .

Mumsie211

js35 wrote: »

We are in kind of a similar situation too and what normally happens afaik is if you get awarded disability that will be added to your husbands wages and counted as means when your Fis gets renewed so you will get it but at a lower rate

That makes sense , I thought it would be one or the other .

Mumsie211

Gatling wrote: »

Unfortunately there's no guarantee you will actually get disability a lot of people get refused at several attempts .

I rang the disability department and they said I'm definitely entitled to it from a medical perspective and to send my form off and it will take 16 weeks . I just didn't know what way it would work financially then , if it would be FIS or the disability allowance as a choice of payment .

nikkibikki

Similar situation here and they didn't take FIS into consideration. Just income from employment.

They did change his FIS amount though. My DA was awarded from a date before my husbands FIS was calculated and now a few months later, they have cut his FIS based on my DA. Even though everywhere it says that when FIS is awarded it stays the same for 52weeks. I fear they may also now view that he was "overpaid" FIS and will take about half the DA arrears I've been due because of this. The arrears were supposed to pay Santa's bills as I've been without payment for so long, we haven't been able to save much.

Did something similar happen with your situation?

neonsofa

nikkibikki wrote: »

Similar situation here and they didn't take FIS into consideration. Just income from employment.

They did change his FIS amount though. My DA was awarded from a date before my husbands FIS was calculated and now a few months later, they have cut his FIS based on my DA. Even though everywhere it says that when FIS is awarded it stays the same for 52weeks. I fear they may also now view that he was "overpaid" FIS and will take about half the DA arrears I've been due because of this. The arrears were supposed to pay Santa's bills as I've been without payment for so long, we haven't been able to save much.

Did something similar happen with your situation?

If the DA was awarded before the FIS calculation was made then it makes sense that they would recalculate the FIS once you began receiving the DA. If you applied for and received DA after being awarded FIS then the FIS probably wouldn't change until after 52 weeks.

nikkibikki

DA was applied for before FIS renewal. It was awarded afterwards but is being backdated to application date so they have recalculated FIS now. It makes sense that they can do that and I said as much when on the phone to someone in FIS section the other day when I called to query why FIS had changed. Even though it says nowhere that I have found so far that they can do it, it makes sense that they can.

I didn't think they could take an overpayment on my husbands FIS from my arrears though. I'd rather they cut the FIS a little bit extra every week for the remainder of the 52weeks in order to make up the difference. At least we'd be able to sort Santa out and put some oil in the tank.

Gatling

[quote="nikkibikki;101713591"
I didn't think they could take an overpayment on my husbands FIS from my arrears though. I'd rather they cut the FIS a little bit extra every week for the remainder of the 52weeks in order to make up the difference. [/quote]

Yes they regularly do especially on joint claims and family claims ,

We had a poster who's husband was over paid some 11 years before their marriage and when she put in a claim for both of them the Dept applied arrears to the claim and took payments till the original over payment was repaid

neonsofa

nikkibikki wrote: »

I didn't think they could take an overpayment on my husbands FIS from my arrears though. I'd rather they cut the FIS a little bit extra every week for the remainder of the 52weeks in order to make up the difference. At least we'd be able to sort Santa out and put some oil in the tank.

You would have signed the fis form as well as your husband I think so it applies to you as well as your husband. It's a family payment regardless of who works/collects it. Did you request that DSP take it weekly rather than from arrears?

nikkibikki

neonsofa wrote:

You would have signed the fis form as well as your husband I think so it applies to you as well as your husband. It's a family payment regardless of who works/collects it. Did you request that DSP take it weekly rather than from arrears?

That's true. No haven't asked them yet but I will ring them Monday morning and hopefully they will do it that way.

neonsofa

nikkibikki wrote: »

That's true. No haven't asked them yet but I will ring them Monday morning and hopefully they will do it that way.

Yeah I would ask because they do generally allow negotiations on over payments, although if arrears are due they tend to just take deductions from that so the weekly payment isn't affected.

dee40

Mumsie211 wrote: »

I rang the disability department and they said I'm definitely entitled to it from a medical perspective and to send my form off and it will take 16 weeks . I just didn't know what way it would work financially then , if it would be FIS or the disability allowance as a choice of payment .

Be careful with that , most people are refused , I was told exactly same nearly 14 months ago and still fighting