Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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I looked back at previous appearances of the Department before the Committee of Public Accounts and I know that is something that has been raised with it before. In terms of the cost to the Department, has it done any kind of review on the unit costing of the service that an appeals officer provides as opposed to an ordinary staff member who is reviewing an application? Is the issue that there simply is not enough information? As somebody who has gone through the process of applying for carer's allowance, to get a refusal would, I can imagine, be quite distressing. If the issue is simply that there is not enough information, is there a cost to the Department insofar as moving it up a grade to the appeals process rather than the original staff member saying that the Department needs more information from a person?