Ms Jill Farrelly:

I note from a Citizens Information point of view practice within the service. If somebody comes in with a refusal who has additional information, we always submit a review request to the Department first to speed up the process and to see if providing that information again to the deciding officer helps. We have come across situations where it seems that the actual review requests are often sent on to the appeals office by the social welfare officers themselves. We send in a review request and a social welfare appeal to speed things up but the social welfare officers are actually sending them on the appeals office directly without considering them.