Limerick advocacy group identifies ‘flaw’ in benefit service

A SUPPORT service for access to affordable family wellness has unearthed what it describes as a “flaw” in a benefit scheme.

Empower Hour, which meets on a weekly basis at Angel Times in Thomas Street, discovered a gap in the childcare subvention scheme as set out by Pobal, the national body for the allocation of funding.

Empower Hour service users, who are mainly parents and single parents on social welfare payments were, the group says, “left in the lurch” footing full afterschool childcare costs despite the promise of full subsidiy from the national body.

This, they say, occurred due to a time-lapse in clearance processes for higher capitation.

It occurred last week, which represented the first week of the academic year 2019 to 2020.

It’s meant they have had to foot full childcare costs, despite the promise of full subsidy.

Sarah-Lee Cassidy, founder of Empower Hour said: “Parents don’t have income to cover the shortfall and private businesses are afraid of coming forward for fear of raising red flags in an already very unregulated arena such as childcare.”

She added there is no worker union in place for after-school services, and providers would often find it difficult to go against the status quo.

A single parent from the Empower Hour forum who wished to remain anonymous said: “Parents depend on these services to give financial support. Parents seek that support because they are financially stuck and this glitch is a huge burden.

“We can neither afford to go to work or afford to pay for childcare. It's a catch 22.”

Services providing for such parents are losing numbers due to the unfulfilled promise at the start of the academic year.

Ms Cassidy added: “Parents cannot afford to foot the bill and wait for reimbursement. The funds just aren’t there.”

Julie Gilmore from a local creche added: “We are incurring the costs so parents don’t have to and I have amassed losses due to the shortfall but many service providers are small and can’t do this.

“Many applications have been put on band B and this has brought about delays and some lower income families have had to pay the shortfall.”

In a statement, Pobal said: "In an effort to minimise the turnaround time Pobal undertakes a bulk validation check on large
numbers of applications involving medical cards/GP visit cards. This provides a quick as possible validation of the medical card/GP visit card status of all of the applicants involved. This is the process that has been adopted for CCS for the past number of years and allows Pobal to approve the registrations so that payments can commence. Many of these registrations receive the correct band based on the DEASP entitlement and MC/GP Visit card status as a result of this process."

Once registrations are approved in bulk, the agency then begins a second review of the individual registrations that received a lower band than that requested.

"We re-examine the eligibility checks and we review any eligibility documents that may have been attached to the registration. This review usually identifies that many applicants have correctly been awarded a lower band than requested. If as a result of the second review, the lower band remains, we provide feedback to the service provider, explaining why the lower band was awarded. Any corrections that need to be made to the bands are applied to the registrations retrospectively. Pobal has found this to be the quickest and most effective method to turn around the number of approvals, on the large volume of applications for CCSP which are received within a short period of time. Pobal is acutely aware that this is also a busy and sensitive period of time for parents and guardians requiring childcare subvention, and is working as carefully and as quickly as possible to deal with all CCSP applications."

They confirmed that: "In the meantime, Pobal prepays early learning and care providers a four week preliminary payment for
CCSP based on CCSP registrations in the previous year, in the particular service. This is paid to minimise the risk that the early learning and care provider is out of pocket in the interim period and to ease the situation in turn for the parent until their application is completed."

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