Falling foul of yet another loophole

IDON’T know how we managed to do it, but as a family we have contrived to miss out on a fair few state handouts. We didn’t qualify for the first time buyer’s grant but did qualify for almost €70K stamp duty. We didn’t qualify for a free pre-school year or any free GP visits; I haven’t had grants for my children’s education or help with the monthly medication for my daughter’s illness.

It’s the same for a lot of people I know, but the current situation we’re in annoys me, and it’s a pandemic payment loophole that must also apply to a few people. My almost-24-year-son has worked, paying stamps and tax, since he could. He saved up and went travelling in January, a job ready for when he came back. Irish citizens were advised to return home when the pandemic started, so, he came home. The job, like so many, was gone and there is an issue with getting anything else because his sister is immunosuppressed but, because he hadn’t been working on March 8, he was not eligible for the Covid payment.

Because he is under 25, he isn’t eligible for much else either. He may be eligible for €100 a week but, two months since he came back, he still doesn’t know and only last week he got a set of means test forms to fill out. Apparently, despite the fact he has paid tax and PRSI for years, like his parents and grandparents, and has never got any benefits, there is a chance even in a bloody pandemic that he is simply not eligible for anything at all. A 24-year-old man who paid his own way and contributed to his home is now potentially supposed to live entirely off his single, also income-impacted, mother.