Courts

Month-long voluntary service does not entitle woman to jobseekers’ allowance, court rules

The woman applied for jobseekers’ allowance in 2018 after spending a month with a charity in an unpaid capacity

The woman and her husband came to Ireland from Romania with their two children in 2016.

Fri Oct 14 2022 - 20:52

A woman has no entitlement to the €203 weekly jobseekers’ allowance because her month-long unpaid voluntary service with a charity did not mean she had “acquired the status of a worker”, the Court of Appeal (CoA) has ruled.

The woman and her husband came to Ireland from Romania with their two children in 2016. Her husband underwent a second leg amputation following his arrival in Ireland and was unfit for work.

The woman, who had not worked up to this point, applied for jobseekers’ allowance in 2018 after spending a month in an unpaid voluntary capacity with a charity providing meals and other help for the homeless.

An EU citizen who arrives here enjoys residency rights and must work or actively seek work for six months but they don’t have a right to non-contributory benefits like the jobseekers’ allowance.

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Although it was hoped the woman would then go on to join a community employment scheme after the charity stint, this did not occur.

The family, who had been living here with a relative, were required to leave that accommodation after the relationship became very strained. They effectively became homeless, making it more difficult to obtain employment, the court heard.

At one point, her husband could not be discharged from hospital because he had nowhere to live. They were eventually provided with emergency accommodation.

When she was refused the jobseekers’ allowance, she brought a High Court challenge which was rejected in November 2020.

That court found her time with the charity was “more in the nature of a service user”, as opposed to a worker. The court also rejected claims of breaches of constitutional and European Convention rights.

The woman appealed the decision and on Friday the CoA rejected the appeal.

Ms Justice Una Ní Raifeartaigh, on behalf of the three-judge appeal court, said the jobseekers’ allowance is “not a payment intended to assist with the seeking of jobs, but is a subsistence payment for those who are as a matter of fact in the position of seeking jobs.”

She continued: “The word ‘jobseeker’ in the title of the benefit is a description of the category of person to which it applies and not an indication that the payment is for the purpose of facilitating entry to the labour market.”

As had been held in previous case law, Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh was of the view the allowance is “a form of social assistance and not a measure intended to facilitate entry to the labour market.”

There was no doubt about the genuineness of her search for employment and one could “only admire and have sympathy” for her efforts in 2018 when faced with very difficult family and other circumstances, the judge said.

While the appeal court was informed she was now in employment, the judge said the key question for the court was whether her work with the charity for a month in April 2018 conferred worker status on her within the meaning of EU law.

It was clear that, by virtue of jobseeking alone, she “did not acquire the status of worker”, she said.

The judge rejected an application for a reference on the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU as “no point of EU law requires clarification”.

She found there was no breach of constitutional or European Convention rights.

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