Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that 18 weeks is too long. I also acknowledge that when people do appeal, they may have to wait another 12, 14 or 16 weeks but it is because of the complexity of the application in the first instance. This is why we not only move staff around to try to reduce those working weeks turnaround, we are going to improve the application process to make it easier for people to give more accurate information in the first instance in the same way as we did with the domiciliary care allowance. The changing of the form has had a huge impact so we are going to do for carers.