Missed collecting a JA payment due to a covid infection, now I'm being denied access to the payment

I do sympathise, but Technically as you where Sick for an entire week the DSP are correct. It's also the fact you were unable to work. It is a very Harsh decision & you could appeal but I'd be skeptical you'd succeed.

There should be information (e.g. a circular) provided by these centres, to explain the grounds on which such a decision has been made, and upon what grounds you might challenge that decision, depending on what proofs you might have.

I mean, you need to survive on something. If you're not entitled to this jobseekers' payment, there must be something else which could 'plug the gap' in your income, due to being ill. We aren't living in the days of Charles Dickens, God be good to us.

The welfare lifers don't appear to have these issues.

If not entitled to your payment, are you.then entitled to.a.disability payment or something.

I recall court cases where judges refused to fine welfare recipients as they believed their payment was the minimum amount they could live on so how does this tie in with taking complete payment from someone who was ill for a week?

This country appear to favour the workshy in all situations. At least now they are bringing in raised payments based on previous income for a period for people made redundant.

There is and very clear rules laid out with regard to collection of payments, some people on here claim folks have days to collect, they absolutely do not. A claim can and are suspended if payment is not collected on the day its Due to be collected

Those days of Judges not fining people on welfare long gone. 15% of a person's payment can be clawed back for an over payment &I presume the same applies for court fines

Where are those rules laid out? Is there a more up-to-date department circular than that which I have been able to find (2020)?

Either way, my point is the OP ought to have been able to come away with a view of the same guidelines from which the department's staff are working from, so they're all on the same sheet, so to speak. That way s/he won't be out of pocket due to a communicable illness.

You clearly had contributions as you mentioned you were made redundant. You may not like the rules & are free to appeal.

Best of luck with that

I am not the OP.

You're.

And apologies, but so are you. Social Welfare have always made provisions for when claimants could not get to the post office for some reason, illness being one of them.

As I said, anyone who is an inpatient in hospital does not have their payments stopped because they are ill, and the last thing they need to be dealing with, is DSP.

And while the OP may have made contributions in the past, not everyone has contributions to fall back on.

The only thing the OP did incorrectly here, was not advise INTREO that they couldn't make it to the post office before they were due to collect their payment. And they probably didn't know they had to do that.

It's gas, someone on JSA can go on holidays out of the country for two weeks and still get their JSA when they come back, but you're implying someone is not allowed get sick for a few days without losing their payment.

OP, appeal. It sounds to me like you encountered a jobsworth who jumped on your admission of illness as their excuse to suspend your payment because they probably didn't actually know how to deal with it properly.

And thats coming from someone (me) who has been a civil servant for over 30 years, so no bias against civil servants here.

Best of luck.

Seems pretty obvious that the clerk doesn't believe a word of the OP.

Having Covid doesn't stop you from contacting them to say you can't collect, and most people don't give a toss about self isolating now anyway so the clerk probably thinks the OP was up to something else and is just using covid as a convenient excuse after the fact.

It just isn't plausible that somebody genuinely thinks that you can skip signing on day and just rock up later on whenever it suits.

OP may not like that, but what else would prompt the clerk to start being a jobsworth? The point is that there will be little use trying to convince them to change their mind unless you address why they likely made that decision in the first place.

You are quite deliberately being rather petulant and referring to those on long term illness, disability or pension payments.

ÓP Was sick for a week, didn't collect their payment which was then suspended. They went on to admit they were sick and by default not available for or looking for work & lost Jobseekers payment for that week.

You've clearly not a clue what the eligibility criteria is to recieve a Jobseekers payment.

To suggest an agent can be nominated to collect someone's Jobseekers payment is preposterous.

DSP have made a decision, harsh it may be but correct.

Now move on 🙄

Thank you, I'm exhausted dealing with the shocking lack or basic understanding of how DSP operate, it's extraordinary.

I was attempting to be direct in my initial response to OP as opposed to offering ridiculous suggestions & makey uppy nonsense.

Such an exhausting back & fourth with a poster, so abjectly wrong & petulant.

Thankfully you & others clarified matters 😉