Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I concur with the Deputy. Somebody in the Department should undertake a strategic analysis of the outcomes of these cases from the appeals office. If so many are being overturned, perhaps the criteria the appeals office are using should be used as the criteria for stage 1 of the application. We all know that when a case goes to the appeals office, the officials will tell the person to get more up-to-date medical information due to the passage of time, if nothing else, given the long delays involved, and the person will need to have an up-to-date consultant's report. That tends to work in the appeals office. The question is why it did not work on day one. The Department should examine what is done in the appeals office and see what manuals it is using, and then try to use the same approach from day one. We all share the same experience.

The next item deals with the same Department. The committee recommends that the JobPath programme be reviewed on a value for money basis to determine whether the programme should continue. The Department accepts the recommendation in full. It has conducted many surveys and the CSO has conducted a survey, with the statistics and business intelligence unit within the Department.