Ombudsman reiterates warning about inequality in the payment of extraordinary support

Vulnerable families who are part of the convergent social protection scheme are still not receiving the extraordinary support to mitigate the effects of inflation created by Decree-Law 21-A/2023 of 28 March, and the Ombudsman recently renewed her call to the Secretary of State for Public Administration in July for the problem to be resolved.

The law establishes that, among others, households in which one of the members receives the 1st and 2nd family allowances are entitled to the support in question. However, so far this support is only being paid to beneficiaries who receive their family allowance through the Social Security Institute. Those who receive exactly the same family allowance in the 1st and 2nd brackets, but paid by their employers or the Caixa Geral de Aposentações, i.e. those covered by the convergent social protection scheme, have been left out without any justification.

Whilst there is no doubt that these families are entitled to support, the situation only arises from the fact that it is not clear who is responsible for payment in these cases. Thus, although the law stipulates that the support is granted automatically by the social security system, the Social Security Institute claims that it has no data on who these beneficiaries are; the employers and the Caixa Geral de Aposentações, for their part, have no data on who the beneficiaries are.