Social Welfare (Supplementary Welfare Allowances) Act, 1975

Arrangements for burials.

18.—(1) A health board may provide for the burial of any of the following persons—

(a) a person who died within the functional area of such health board and in respect of whom suitable arrangements for his burial are not otherwise being made,

(b) a person who has been drowned and cast ashore within the functional area of such health board or who has otherwise perished and been found dead within the said functional area and (in either case) whose body has not been claimed for burial.

(2) A health board may, in any case in which it thinks proper, bring into and bury in its functional area the body of a person eligible for supplementary welfare allowance who has died outside such functional area.

(3) A health board may defray all expenses necessarily incurred in the burial under this section of a person or in the bringing of the body of a person into its functional area for burial.

(4) Where a health board incurs under this section expenses in relation to the body of a deceased person, such health board may obtain repayment of such expenses from the estate of such deceased person or from any person who was liable to maintain such person immediately before his death.