Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have follow-on questions. I will stick to the exceptional needs payments, in particular the fact that changes in what was categorised as an exceptional need led to a substantial reduction in what was paid out. The Estimate for last year was more than €45 million but €35 million was spent. If the community welfare officers are now being located in Intreo offices, is it making it more difficult for people to access the community welfare officers? It is not a problem in an urban area but in the past community welfare officers seemed to be more accessible. I have had a number of complaints in the past week and I am still processing the difficulties in accessing community welfare officers for exceptional needs payments. I presume that some of this will have been triggered by clearance following on from the storms of recent days. I will forward the details to the Minister. Will the community welfare officers in Intreo offices be as available as they were in the past? There is also the issue of capacity as the Department rolls out the Intreo offices.

If one knows how many people each official in an Intreo office is allocated, one can predict how many staff will be required to operate at the capacity needed to deliver the service for unemployed people promised under the Pathways to Work strategy. Some of those in the system are subsequently referred to local employment services and so forth. What is the shortfall in staff and what needs to be done to make up this shortfall? This information will determine the JobPath for which the Department is tendering, namely, the new scheme under which the Department will roll out a service through a private concern or joint venture.

If the current number of staff is inadequate, is this because the recruitment process or the retraining of officials has been slow? I understand a significant number of staff have done additional training and upskilling in recent years and are in a position to deliver the service. I presume that as these staff come on stream, the Department's capacity to deliver the service increases. How many staff are needed to provide the Department with a full capacity to deliver on its promise? Is the figure a multiple of 100, a multiple of ten or in single digits?