Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy. All of us are very lucky to have the Oireachtas lines to the Department of Social Protection. I am very proud of them as Minister but I always used them as a Deputy. Other Departments could learn from ours in relation to that. I thank everybody who staffs them. I will give the Deputy the up-to-date position on appeals. This year, we finalised 44,307 appeals up to the end of October. At the end of October 2024, we had dealt with 22,610 appeals. That is a 96% increase in productivity. Pending appeal volumes have been more than halved. There were 22,000 in January and we are down to 11,000 now. We continue to work our way through that. We have appointed extra appeals officers. The head of appeals and her team have done huge work on IT and changes in their office. I thank them for that. We are very focused on schemes that may be slower than others. We put a lot of focus this year on domiciliary care appeals.

I agree about reviews. It is a very quick way of getting things dealt with. The important thing on appeals, and I keep diving through some of this, is the information provided. We need to give the most possible information. We know that as Oireachtas Members, particularly where the appeal involves the need for medical knowledge. We will continue to work in relation to that.

On the carer's support grant, I will come back to the Deputy. It is paid at the end of June. I will come back to him about the pro rata side of it. It can be difficult to measure that. Generally it is full-time care for at least six months. I see that there can be occasions when that person's care is not properly recognised in a circumstance of bereavement. I will engage with the Deputy on that. If he is aware of specific cases, we will work him on them.