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11 1952

SOCIAL WELFARE ACT, 1952

PART I.

Preliminary and General.

Short title.

1. —This Act may be cited as the Social Welfare Act, 1952.

Interpretation.

2. —(1) In this Act, save where the context otherwise requires—

agriculture” includes dairy-farming and the use of land as grazing, meadow, or pasture land or orchard or osier land or woodland or for market gardens or nursery grounds;

appeals officer” means a person holding office as an appeals officer under section 43;

the appointed day” has the meaning assigned to it in section 72;

beneficiary” means a person entitled to benefit;

benefit” means benefit under this Act;

benefit year” means, in relation to any person, such period of fifty-two or fifty-three contribution weeks as may be prescribed;

contribution week” means a period of seven days commencing from midnight on Sunday, and “contribution year” means, in relation to any person, such period of fifty-two or fifty-three contribution weeks as may be prescribed;

deciding officer” means a person holding office as a deciding officer under section 41;

domestic service” does not include service which is rendered otherwise than in relation to an employer's household and place of residence;

employed contributor” has the meaning assigned to it in subsection (1) of section 4;

employer's contribution” has the meaning assigned to it in section 5;

employment contributions” has the meaning assigned to it in section 5;

entry into insurance” means, in relation to any person, the date on which he becomes an insured person;

the Fund” has the meaning assigned to it in subsection (1) of section 39;

incapable of work” means incapable of work by reason of some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement or deemed, in accordance with regulations, to be so incapable;

increase” means, in relation to any benefit, an increase under section 26 or section 27;

inspector” means a person holding office as an inspector under section 49;

insurance cards” has the meaning assigned to it in subsection (1) of section 8;

insurance stamps” has the meaning assigned to it in subsection (1) of section 8;

insurable employment” means employment such that a person, over the age of sixteen years and under pensionable age, employed therein would be an employed contributor;

insured person” means a person insured under this Act;

the Minister” means the Minister for Social Welfare;

orphan” means—

(a) a qualified child, being a legitimate child, both of whose parents are dead and who, where he has a stepparent, does not normally reside with the stepparent or a person married to and living with the stepparent, or

(b) a qualified child, being an illegitimate child, whose mother is dead and whose father is dead or unknown and who, if there is a surviving husband of his mother, does not normally reside with that husband or a woman married to and living with that husband;

pensionable age” means the age of seventy;

prescribed” means prescribed by regulations;

qualified child” means a person who—

(a) is under the age of sixteen,

(b) is ordinarily resident in the State, and

(c) is not detained in a reformatory or an industrial school;

regulations” means regulations made by the Minister under this Act;

relevant contribution conditions” in relation to benefit of any description, means the contribution conditions for benefit of that description;

voluntary contributions” has the meaning assigned to it in section 5;

voluntary contributor” has the meaning assigned to it in section 4.

(2) For the purposes of this Act—

(a) a person shall be deemed to be over any age therein mentioned if he has attained that age and shall be deemed to be under any age therein mentioned if he has not attained that age;

(b) a person shall be deemed to be between two ages therein mentioned if he has attained the first-mentioned age but has not attained the second-mentioned age;

(c) a person shall be deemed not to have attained the age of sixteen years until the commencement of the sixteenth anniversary of the day of his birth, and similarly with respect to any other age;

(d) regulations may provide that, for the purpose of determining whether a contribution is payable in respect of any person, or at what rate a contribution is payable, that person shall be treated as having attained at the beginning of a contribution week, or as not having attained until the end of a contribution week, any age which he attains during the course of that week.

(3) Any reference in this Act to contributions shall, where the reference is without qualification, be construed, save where the context otherwise requires, as including both a reference to employment contributions and a reference to voluntary contributions.

(4) Regulations may, as respects any class or description of insurable employment, specify the persons to be treated for the purposes of this Act as the employers of employed contributors employed in that employment.

(5) References in this Act to an employed contributor's employer shall not be construed as including his employer in any employment other than insurable employment.

(6) Any question relating to the normal residence of a qualified child shall, for the purposes of this Act, be decided in accordance with subsection (2) of section 5 of the Children's Allowances (Amendment) Act, 1946 (No. 8 of 1946), and the rules under that subsection.

(7) Where a qualified child becomes adopted under any Act providing for the adoption of children (whether passed before or after the passing of this Act), for the purposes of this Act—

(a) the child shall thereafter be treated as if he were the child of the adopter or adopters born to him, her or them in lawful wedlock and were not the child of any other person and, if he was an orphan immediately before the adoption, as having ceased to be an orphan, and

(b) if there is one adopter only, in any application after the adoption with respect to the child of the definition of “orphan” contained in subsection (1) of this section, “the parent of whom is dead” shall be substituted in paragraph (a) of that definition for “both of whose parents are dead”.

(8) References in this Act to any enactment shall be construed as references to that enactment as amended or extended by any subsequent enactment.

General provisions as to regulations.

3. —(1) The Minister may make regulations—

(a) for any purpose in relation to which regulations are provided for by any of the provisions of this Act, and

(b) for prescribing any matter or thing referred to in this Act as prescribed or to be prescribed.

(2) Except in so far as this Act otherwise provides, any power conferred thereby to make regulations may be exercised—

(a) either in relation to all cases to which the power extends, or in relation to all those cases subject to specified exceptions, or in relation to any specified cases, or classes of case, and

(b) so as to make as respects the cases in relation to which it is exercised—

(i) the full provision to which the power extends or any less provision (whether by way of exception or otherwise),

(ii) the same provision for all cases in relation to which the power is exercised or different provision for different cases or classes of case, or different provision as respects the same case or class of case for different purposes of this Act,

(iii) any such provision either unconditionally or subject to any specified condition.

(3) Without prejudice to any specific provision in this Act, any regulations may contain such incidental or supplementary provisions as may appear to the Minister to be expedient for the purposes of the regulations.

(4) The following shall be subject to the sanction of the Minister for Finance:—

(a) regulations for the purposes of section 12 , section 28 , subsection (2) of section 37 , section 60 , section 66 , or subsection (1) of section 69 of this Act,

(b) regulations for the purposes of section 8 of this Act so far as the regulations relate to the fees referred to in subsection (2) of that section,

(c) an order for the purposes of section 64 , section 71 , section 72 or section 83 of this Act,

(d) a draft of regulations under subsection (6) of section 4, subsection (9) of section 6 or subsection (4) of section 14.

(5) Regulations (not being regulations of which a draft is required by this Act to be approved of by resolution of each House of the Oireachtas) shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after they are made and, if a resolution annulling the regulations is passed by either House within the next twenty-one days on which that House has sat after the regulations have been laid before it, the regulations shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder.