This one’s going to be controversial. Saying or writing anything positive about anything government-related here in Ireland seems to be only slightly less frowned upon than treason or terrorism. This is all the more true for the Department of Social Protection, the government department that is in charge of all social welfare related matters in Ireland, as the services of this department seem to be only taken up by “lifestyle unemployed”, “chronic wasters” and, of course, “social welfare tourists” aka immigrants, at least if you listen to conversations in the media. Given this less than positive public perception, I’m writing this post with a certain trepidation. After all, ever since leaving my job back in 2024 for health reasons, I’ve had to rely on Ireland’s social welfare system myself. To make things even worse, I’ve actually been mostly impressed by my experiences.
Having said that, my first contact with the department wasn’t exactly positive. For starters, I’d only had to deal with social welfare once before, and that basically consisted of three visits, the last of which was to notify them that I’d found a job. Also, part of me still remembers dealing with Germany’s social welfare system back in the days of Hartz IV, a series of now infamous reforms of that sector that made the system into an absolute hell for those that needed it. I should know, I was unemployed for a little over a year back then and I remember literally not being able to leave my flat during the week as I had to be present at all times during working hours in case of random inspections, or being treated like a criminal just for getting an apartment that was one square meter above the size limit that the department considered acceptable and having my benefits payment cut as a consequence.
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| It seems to be universal law across all nations that social welfare offices are always have this soul-crushing feel about them, even if the civil servants working there are actually good people! |
So, I was more than a little nervous when, with my financial reserves rapidly approaching depletion, I stepped into the social welfare office on George’s Quay here in Cork. I had to do it this way since my Public Services Card (PSC), which would have given me access to a number of online services, had gone AWOL sometime previously and had, according to some long-ignored to-dos, expired anyway. So, applying for unemployment benefits meant standing around at George’s Quay for ages, filling out endless forms and answering some truly inane questions. I outlined part of that experience over on the Blog without a Job, where I’ve been chronicling my experience with unemployment in general. The whole thing wasn’t made any easier by a series of health issues that I now believe are due to a flare-up of MS.
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| The Intreo Office at Hanover Quay handles all Public Services Card enquiries. It was after a visit here that things really got moving! |
However, things began looking up after a quick detour to another office in Cork that handles PSC issues. A few weeks after my visit there, I had a new card in my mailbox. With this card came access to MyWelfare, the Department of Social Protection’s online platform, as well as to similar platforms for Ireland’s public health service, the HSE, and Revenue, Ireland’s tax authority. Now as you might expect, some platforms seem to be either dated or outright antiquated. And whilst 2 factor authentication is omnipresent thanks to the fact that all these platforms use MyGovID, a dedicated joint login portal, there does not seem to be any support for hardware tokens like Yubikey. File uploads can be tricky at times as well, I’ve had to restart some applications multiple times after uploaded documents suddenly went AWOL, but it’s not a constant issue. In general, the user experience is pretty damn good, and better than with some companies (looking at you, Nespresso!). I’ve also gotten approvals for applications at literally all times of the day. Not joking either, a recent application for illness benefit was approved just before 11 PM on a Friday! So the complaints I do have really do amount to whining at an extremely high level.
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| The convenience of having one single online system for dealing with social welfare is undisputed. The fact that mywelfare.ie actually looks pretty decent doesn't hurt either. |
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| The same goes for the HSE's medical card portal. I would have never gotten such a Medical Card if my Intreo case worker hadn't told me to go and apply for one, by the way! |
The human aspect is a bit of a different story unfortunately. Getting hold of a human to talk issues throug face to face seems pretty much impossible in my experience. The only way to talk to a Social Welfare Officer seems to be via a phone hotline or email. I tried to set up an in-person meeting several times and every time, I was bluntly referred to the hotline. In the same vein, decisions do appear capricious at times, something that has left me out of pocket several times. It’s also a bit weird that, even if you opted for email communication like I did, you still get a physical copy of every email sent to you, even if you’ve already seen the corresponding PDF at MyWelfare.
Having said that, things are still lightyears ahead of where they were when I moved to Ireland back in 2012. Back then, official Ireland’s jihad against trees was in full swing, with even simple requests requiring tons and tons of forms. It’s one of the reasons why I tried to avoid collecting illness benefit until I had absolutely no other choice. No matter if you were sick, proving that required a sheaf of papers large enough to act as a doorstop to be filled out and submitted in person, at least when I tried to do it. And don't get me started on Germany, a country still firmly routed in the digital dark ages! Fast forward to early 2026 when the symptoms of what I now know to be MS became bad enough to really impair my ability to look for a job, and all it took was logging in to MyWelfare and provide a few remaining bits of information. Everything else had already been provided electronically by my GP.
Before I close this out, let me circle back to the human aspect again. As mentioned before, it’s sometimes tough to get a human to talk to. However, once you do manage that, be it a case worker at Intreo, Ireland’s unemployment service, or a more general case worker, my personal experience at least has been almost universally good, with the exception of one severely humour-deficient individual at George’s Quay. In fact, I’ve had several cases where case workers proactively reached out to let me know about benefits that I was eligible for, but not collecting, with one case worker going so far as to call me well after close of business just for that purpose. They actually caught me whilst walking on the beach with a friend.
Of course, the system isn’t perfect, and neither is this blog post. I’m only one person, and a sample size of one does not exactly make for good statistics. The system is also clearly suffering from a lack of staffing and decades of underfunding, leaving it incapable of properly addressing the ever escalating cost-of-living crisis gripping Ireland, and indeed much of the western world. And don’t even get me started on the social housing situation, that’s going to require its own post at some point. Having said that however, I’ve found myself continually impressed by my experiences. The system operates at a level that I honestly wasn’t expecting, and whilst I definitely don’t want to spend the rest of my life collecting benefits, simply because that’s a way of life that I just don’t feel fits my self perception or my expectations, its value is undeniable!
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