Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Hession for coming before the committee. A number of us have been raising issues around the additional needs payments and community welfare officers, CWOs, in particular access to CWOs, for some time now. We do not raise these issues for the fun of it but because constituents are coming to us. They are facing difficulties with the wait time for additional needs payments and due to the way they used to access the community welfare officer no longer being an option. These are real issues which are affecting people in very difficult situations, especially now as we go through this cost-of-living crisis and we are in what is going to be a very difficult winter for very many people.

I want to check one point in Mr. Hession's opening statement as to what an additional need payment is and when he says it is once-off. It is important that he confirm that people can get more than one additional needs payment, particularly when it comes to energy costs. The language around once-off payments, and it was there for exceptional needs payments in its time, causes difficulty. I have met people who have told me they had already applied once and could not apply again. The messaging around that is important. Where people are struggling, they need to know they can seek additional assistance. That would be important.

People will be surprised at 3% of the expenditure being on heating costs, but given the amount of money being spent, it is probably a larger cohort than it may have been previously. Will Mr. Hession tell us how many payments have been made in 2022 for heating and will he give the number of payments and the spend on heating specifically?

It has been said many times that local facing engagement with customers continues to be a cornerstone of the community welfare service. Will Mr. Hession tell the committee who decided and when it was decided that community welfare officers would come out of the community? They would have been in the local health centre in many towns. I know in my hometown of Ballaghaderreen, the community welfare officer was in the health centre and people could go in and out to them. That knowledge was very important because the CWO knew Mary or Johnny and knew they were coming in. All of that is important and that is why community welfare services were set up in the first place. That was the whole point of the CWOs. It is easy to say we have 50 Intreo centres and that they are open 9 to 5. In that instance in Ballaghaderreen, a person would have to travel to Roscommon town, which is 40 to 45 minutes away, both ways, and there is no public transport. It is just not that simple.

We have many new communities throughout the State. They do not have English as their first language and they are seeking supports. It would have been an awful lot easier to pop into the health centre and speak to the CWO. Some of them are coming in and they do not have access to phones and do not speak English. Some people also do not feel comfortable speaking over the phone. We all see it, even with constituents today. When they are speaking to us, they do not want to do it over the phone. I have highlighted many times an issue one of the local family resource centres raised with me. If you are in a domestic violence situation, you may not have a phone. You may not have ten minutes to be on the phone explaining your situation, but if you go to the shop, you can run into the health centre quietly and speak to the CWO. You might not be in a position to invite them to your house or to meet them separately. These are the kinds of situations I am talking about and the difficulties there are for people given the CWOs have been removed from the community. That is a fact. It would be helpful if Mr. Hession could tell us who decided and when it was decided that would be the case.

On putting the application online, this is a suggestion I made to the Minister back in June. It has taken a long time for this to happen. I welcome that the Minister has said it will be up and running in the new year. That is welcome and it will help a certain cohort of people who will be able to do those applications online. If the system does not allow them to submit an application until all of that information is given, there will not be that delay and the over-and-back looking for additional information. That is very important.

Will Mr. Hession tell us a little bit more about the support hubs he is talking about establishing, as mentioned in his statement?

On the waiting times for additional needs payments, at the beginning of September I received correspondence to say 95% of applications were taking between eight to ten weeks to finalise. This is obviously far too long. Waiting four weeks for the majority of payments is still very long. If a person is in an emergency, they put in the application form that is about 16 pages - in many of our cases it goes to Tuam now - and then people are left to wait. That is a long time to wait. I appreciate not all applications are made in an emergency and that, where people can get in touch with the CWO, the application may be able to be moved along. However, the fact that applications are now being sent to Tuam and not to the local CWO or meeting them in that instance all poses difficulties.

Regarding applications that are refused, when it was just the exceptional and urgent needs payment, data were not collected or collated by the Department on it. I understand that is now taking place for the additional needs payment. It would be helpful if Mr. Hession could tell us, of the number of applications received this year, how many have refused. That is important information.

There is pressure on the system and we all know that. Concrete steps are being taken, people are being hired and, as Mr Hession has said, 30 social welfare inspectors have been redeployed. All of that is welcome but it is so late in the day to be doing this. The cost-of-living crisis has been going on all year. Demand surely should have been anticipated when the additional needs payment was first announced back in June. It is very regrettable that it is only now that staff are being hired and moved around. I understand the staff members being hired will not be in place until next year when a lot of the winter and the hardship through that will have come and gone. It is very regrettable that steps were not taken and additional resources put in quicker and sooner, especially when this was being advertised as a support to people. In some cases I am aware of people who are still waiting ten weeks. I know of a gentleman who applied at the end of September and who is still waiting. It is about 12 weeks now. It is not good enough.

The removal of the community welfare officers from the community, which is where they are supposed to be, is something that is causing and will cause huge difficulty for very many people. I do not understand why this was done and it is something the Department should revisit. That is something very many people in the Opposition have said and we cannot all be wrong. It should be something to be looked at and I encourage Mr. Hession to do that.