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

I thank the Minister. She says the present system is a help to applicants. Due to the delays they can submit new evidence to strengthen their cases and so forth. Her point is that the present system assists appellants because, as time passes, if one gets further evidence and so forth one can strengthen one's initial case. However, if one takes that argument to its logical conclusion, it would be a case for extending the delay period even further and saying that an appeal cannot be decided finally for at least a year or 18 months so that every scrap of information that can be got can be submitted.

The Minister also said the appeals office is independent. That is correct. It has a quasi-judicial role. It has not yet been put on a statutory basis, but I acknowledge the fact that it is independent. On the other hand the Minister also points out that the Government was able to do certain things which made the process shorter, so it is not independent in that sense. The Government has the power to take certain steps which will shorten the waiting time for appeals. It has already done that, so it can do so again.

It is correct that it is a multi-stage process. One of the big causes of delay in getting a result in an appeal is that the file has not yet been sent from the Department to the appeals officer. I understand that in many cases, particularly with carer's allowance and disability allowance, it is taking an average of four months for the file to go from the Department to the appeals office. Will the Minister see what can be done to shorten that period?

We are seeking something specific here. We are dealing with a situation where the decision is overturned by way of a review or by appeal. Some decisions will be overturned by way of a review, which is a much shorter process than an appeal, but a number of them will go to appeal. On the last count, 56% of the decisions were wrong in the first instance. Consider the case of a person who gets a wrong decision. They have to wait for the claim to be assessed as it takes time for the initial decision to be made. Then if they appeal, it could take another five or six months. In many cases, although not all of them, these people have no alternative source of income while they are waiting, for example, applicants for carer's allowance. Applicants in cases where habitual residence is an issue will not get a supplementary welfare allowance while they are waiting.

During that lengthy waiting period not only do they suffer loss of income and all that entails - in many cases they are living on charity - but they also experience a great deal of anxiety and distress because they are waiting for a life-changing decision, whether they are entitled to social welfare. They suffer great anxiety during that period. I am seeking to shorten the length of that period, to reduce the time for which they will be poor or totally impecunious, and the time for which they will be distressed, anxious and waiting. If the resources within the Department do not permit that to be done now, I ask the Minister to commit to doing it as soon as possible by putting further improvements in place, as has been done to shorten the appeal period.