Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is not a full one. The staff there are brilliant. They are my next-door neighbours and they are very good. They are super-efficient. However, there is a problem in relation to that outreach and the absence of face-to-face meetings. Sometimes the people who are applying need help filling out the forms. They are very straightforward forms. However, there is a problem in terms of service delivery. I outlined the kind of payments - the special needs payment, the urgent needs payment and interim payments for people who are waiting for a social welfare claim for illness benefit or something like that. They are out of work perhaps for the first time. There is then the additional needs payment, which is related to cost of living.

I am asking Mr. McKeon to re-examine this. I do not want his staff tied up, sitting and waiting for people to come in the door in clinics at every crossroads or anything like that. However, if there could be a network of four or five clinics run in counties, where there would be a CWO, who generally do good work, as any of them I have been in contact with does, to process it. If they have to appeal, it can be very slow once it goes over to D'Olier Street. That system is already on overload. Sometimes much of this can be solved at a face-to-face meeting without it getting to that point. Perhaps Mr. McKeon-----