Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In the autumn or towards the end of the year, I will provide a short report on the total numbers. They are significant. The worst cases are where the people concerned had not even made an application but made inquiries, which inquiries became parliamentary questions. I am thankful that these cases are very few and far between but Deputy Butler is correct that the parliamentary questions system is an enormous draw on resources. We spent a lot of money on the inquiry lines and the seminars and workshops we have run. We are always open to doing more.

What Deputy Butler said about getting to know the local social welfare manager and the new systems is correct. We are working with Plain English Ireland and NALA, the National Adult Literacy Agency, to make our forms simpler. We did much work this year with parents to improve the forms for domiciliary care allowance. We now give them three months’ notice if there is to be any kind of review and two months to get their child’s medical evidence together. I want to do this with many other schemes.

Many Deputies accept e-mail replies to parliamentary questions. Until recently, it was the case that some Deputies would only accept a hard-copy letter. Thankfully, that has changed as it was a significant resource issue.