Court orders blind man’s benefits restored

A 29-YEAR-OLD blind father of two children with the same disability, who was stripped of his benefits, has had them reinstated by the courts.

The man’ benefits were taken away in May 2008. In fact the state asked that he return €49.96 to the Social Welfare Services for alleged overpayments.

The father of two was born blind. He was employed as a lottery seller before taking on a job as a phone operator for a government service.

In 2005 he married his second wife and the couple had two children, aged three and five, also blind and who receive state aid.

Furthermore the 29-year-old’s wife does not work and has never sought unemployment benefits.

The problem emerged when Welfare asked for a breakdown of his monthly salary from December 2006 to February 2007 to check his eligibility for aid.

But because he worked a lot of overtime during February, his income was overinflated for that month. He was unwilling to provide the information on the basis that it was not a fair determinant of whether he should continue to receive financial aid or not.

In February 2008 the 29-year-old agreed to submit the information to Welfare and in May 2008 his application for benefits was turned down on the grounds that his income exceeded his needs, as he had predicted.

According to the man’s lawyer, George Papadopoulos, Welfare acted under a false assumption and there was no proper investigation into the case and therefore the decision was not justified. The court agreed.