A WOMAN who has been in a psychiatric hospital for the last 25 years has secured €60,000 in settlement of her High Court claim for backdated welfare payments.
Through her parents, the now 55-year-old woman had sued the Minister for Health and Children and the Minister for Social Family and Community Affairs for allegedly excluding her from receiving disability benefit while she was in the hospital.
According to legal sources, the action may give rise to similar claims by hundreds of other people living in such institutions.
The woman, who cannot be named, was admitted on a permanent basis to a hospital in May 1983 having been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. Before her admission, she had been receiving disabled persons maintenance allowance but that allowance was cut off 13 weeks after she went into hospital.
In her High Court case, the woman claimed she had been discriminated against and was entitled to backdated payments from July 1983 to October 1996, when the disability benefit scheme was changed.
A new scheme was brought in three years later, in 1999, and in 2006, a new law was introduced providing for the payment of benefits to all such people in these institutions. This scheme was applicable from January 2007.
The State denied the woman's constitutional rights had been breached and argued there was an inexcusable delay in bringing the case.
Yesterday, the High Court was told the matter had been settled for €60,000. Paul Gardiner SC, for the woman, said that while the amount sought had been higher, it was felt on balance this was a fair settlement. There will be a separate application later for the woman to be made a ward of court.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy said she had no difficulty in approving the settlement.
Afterwards, Denis Boland, solicitor for the family, said in a statement that the failure to ensure the woman received her allowances had caused her parents, who are now in their 80s, great distress.
The statement said the family has taken this case in their daughter's best interests, to assert her legal rights and to ensure that other individuals in psychiatric hospitals are aware of their rights and entitlements, both current and retrospective.
The plaintiff's family strongly feel that there is an onus on the relevant public bodies to ensure that patients and their families are paid the correct and legal entitlements so that those patients can enjoy some quality of life despite their mental condition.
The family now calls on the relevant Government departments to provide a co-ordinated approach to the administration of welfare entitlements of those people, like the plaintiff, who reside in psychiatric hospitals in this country.