Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 December 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Management of Social Welfare Appeals
Chapter 11 - Controls Over the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment

9:30 am

Mr. John McKeon:

I do not have that information in front of me but we can get it and we will send it to the Deputy. Of the 21,000 claims that were received and processed, we subsequently got 4,000 appeals or thereabouts. That is approximately one fifth of those cases. Roughly 60% of those are passed on appeal and, in most cases, on review. To get to the Deputy's point, we are looking at 60% of 20%. Therefore, we are looking at roughly 12%. That is, therefore, an overhead in roughly around 12% of the cases. Many of those would have been done by the same staff member in the Department. The difference is that an appeals officer is generally an assistant principal grade and our deciding officers are generally clerical officer or executive officer grade. There is, therefore, a cost differential if I can put it in those terms.

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