Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We believe the increase in the recipients of carer's allowance is largely down to demographics, with more people and an aging population. We are deciding 73% of disability allowance within 12 weeks, which has improved quite substantially. I appreciate that anyone waiting that long is waiting a very long time. Of course, we pay in arrears. Much of the time people are on basic supplementary welfare allowance while they wait for the decision. That is certainly something we need to improve and the same applies to DCA. We have had some difficulty hiring medical staff. I think we are at full complement now, which is the first time in a long time that we have had a full complement of medical assessors, which has helped significantly in improving waiting times. We will improve them further. However, at some times we run into issues. As with any application system we can receive incomplete information requiring us to go back for more information and so on.

The budget for the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance has been reduced. That is largely a reflection of the reduction in the live register meaning that fewer people are entitled to it. However, that is offset by an increase in the number of people entitled to FIS, which is a reflection of the increase in employment.

We estimate that an additional 2,000 families will become eligible to FIS in 2017.