Illness Benefit claim "pending" for 3 months now

Dacelonid

Hi
My wife put in a claim for illness benefit in April, which still has not been paid. Every time she calls into the social welfare office they say that the case was sent to Dublin for review and is still pending.

The full story of the facts are as follows.
My wife was out of work, and after her brother committed suicide in 2010 she was put on sick certs by her doctor due to bereavement. In 2011 we had our first child and the doctor changed her sick certs to depression. The case was sent to medical review and they determined that while she wasn't fit to return to full time work, she was fit to return to some kind of work. (Totally disagree with that decision, but fair enough) She started looking for work again, but of course couldn't find any.
Since January we are expecting our second child. During this pregnancy she suffered with SPD, which meant that she couldn't walk far or sit for long periods, ie unfit to work, so submitted an illness claim. (This is the claim that is outstanding), was sent for physio and was prescribed a support belt to alleviate the pain. A combination of the physio and belt helped, and she was able to resume job search, so submitted a final illness cert, and was lucky enough to get a job offer within 2 weeks.

So despite repeated attempts to get the illness benefit she is owed paid, nothing has progressed with the case. It is still down as pending and apparently (according to them) there is nothing the local social welfare office can do.

We have written a letter to them a month ago, outlining everything I said above, but still nothing.
Does anybody have any suggestions on what we can try to get some movement on this case. Or has anybody come across anything like this before.

Thanks
Dace

eastbono

You need to get onto Illness Benefit in Store Street in Dublin they are the people who deal specifically with illness benefit. Your local sw office will only certify the certs on the system and send them to Store Street.