Mr. Niall Egan:

We put a lot of focus in the Department on how we are deciding on jobseeker's claimants. We have a new process called the national processing team to try to standardise decision-making because it would traditionally have been an issue that one office would not necessarily have made the same decision based on the same information as a different office. We now have a huge focus in that regard and we have seen an improvement in processing times. I do not have that information regarding how many have means but we can get that information for the Deputy and report back.

In terms of disability allowance, we obviously did not achieve our target in 2023 as per the PSPR report. We are meeting our target of 75% of claims to be processed but the Deputy raised the question of what happens to the other 25%. That goes back to the Deputy's previous comment in that we do not always get information, particularly in relation to illness-based schemes, for us to process claims. There is a lot of back-and-forth on the disability scheme in particular, about increasing information. I know the committee is well aware that if decisions are made and claims go to appeal, at times additional medical information can be provided and that can account for the appeals being upheld in certain cases. There is an issue there, we are looking at it and we have an appeals modernisation project under way in our appeals office to process claims. We are hoping that that will reduce appeal waiting times. There is an IT component, a change management component and we are putting in additional resources to increase and enhance the decision-making turnaround times. We are focused on doing that continuously. It started last year and is ongoing this year.

Regarding the Deputy's questions in relation to the employment support schemes, the RSS, CE and Tús, I can categorically state it is not a policy response. We are very fortunate as a society that we have the lowest record long-term unemployment rate in the history of the Irish State, at approximately 1%. The net effect of that is that the schemes are predominantly but not exclusively for long-term unemployed people. We have made huge efforts within the Department over the past two to three years, since we came out of Covid, to promote the schemes to people. The Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, in particular is very strong in relation to this as he has responsibility for CE. Huge effort is being put into it. People in receipt of jobseeker's payments and other schemes have been contacted about the Department's employment support schemes. We are finding that with the tight labour market, the targets in the PSPR are higher than the available supports. We are struggling to fill those schemes, largely in light of the tight labour market. We have a record low live register at the moment, particularly on a long-term unemployment basis. It is absolutely not a policy issue. We are making every effort to try to fill those places as best we can.