Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Gleeson for her presentation. I have regular dealings with the social welfare appeals office and take the opportunity to thank the staff of that office for the courtesy I am always shown.

In the context of the table Ms Gleeson provided, it is disappointing, despite all the work that has been done, that matters have not really improved with regard to the period between the making of an initial application and an appeal. In some instances, they have marginally disimproved. I take the point that some of this is outside the Department's control. I am aware that officers in Limerick dealing with appeals related to supplementary welfare applications still have not received some of the material they require. This is despite the fact that the appeals in question may have been made between six and eight months ago. That is outrageous, particularly in the context of making a basic payment. As Ms Gleeson is aware, supplementary welfare is designed to tide people over while they are waiting for something better to come along or for a decision on their social welfare claims. It is unacceptable that people are being obliged to wait six to eight months for payment because the Department simply has not furnished the relevant information to the appeals office.

I am glad that the processing times between the holding of oral hearings and the making of summary decisions have been reduced. However, as I understand it, there is still a difference of three months in this regard. According to statistics provided by FLAC for 2011, the success rate in oral hearings was 48%, whereas that in the case of summary decisions was only 25%. FLAC recommended that appellants be informed of this and encouraged to seek oral hearings. It has been my experience that appellants are being informed that if they seek such hearings, it will be months before they are held, which is something of a deterrent. Rather than deterring people or advising them to take a course of action which may lessen their chances, we should advise them on the possibility of achieving greater success through oral hearings. Will Ms Gleeson provide an indication as to when the gap in time between the holding of oral hearings and the making of summary decisions will be completely closed? In other words, when will there be a similar timescale for the two?

In the context of the Department not sending on material in respect of invalidity pension and carer's allowance claims, etc., as stated, I deal with the relevant staff on a regular basis and do not believe what is happening in this regard has anything to do with their competence or ability. There are simply too few such staff. A follow-up to the Croke Park agreement is being negotiated. My understanding was that one of the fundamental terms of the original agreement was that staff would be readily deployable. In other words, the Government is supposed to be in a position to take staff from places where they are not exactly worked and redeploy them to areas where existing staff have too much work in hand. This does not seem to have happened to any great degree in the Department of Social Protection. This provision should be entrenched in the follow-up to the Croke Park agreement. There has been a great deal of public debate about people who work in certain areas and payments for overtime, working unsocial hours, etc. From the point of view of customers, namely, those the public service is supposed to serve, a fundamental provision in this regard should be contained in the follow-up to the Croke Park agreement. This is part of the original Croke Park deal which has not been implemented.

Some time ago FLAC made submissions at a meeting we attended in the Mansion House and one of the points it made - I do not say this in a critical way - was that, under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the social welfare appeals system was required to be fully independent. It is not, of course, fully independent because it is actually part of the Department of Social Protection and there is no security of tenure for appeals officers, etc. Another important point FLAC made was that there was not equality between an appellant and the Department in the event of an appeal. For example, social welfare appellants are not entitled to civil legal aid to assist in his or her appeal. This is despite the fact that he or she will be up against someone on the other side who is an expert. More importantly, there appears to be a problem in that the social welfare officers who represent the Department at appeal hearings have access to more information than appellants who do not have full access to the information on their cases which is in the possession of the former. That seems fundamentally unfair. However, I will not belabour the point.

I thank our guests for the work they are doing. I do not doubt their bona fides for one moment, but when I consider the totality of the situation in respect of someone on carer's allowance whose application is refused in the first instance - as is the case with many individuals - and who then makes an appeal, I am aware that the duration of the process has been reduced by four weeks. However, it still lasts for over eight months. The position on disability allowance applications is much the same. The situation with regard to invalidity pension applications has worsened because the period has lengthened from 35 weeks to 39. I appreciate the work our guests are doing, but there is still a long way to go.