Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 December 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Management of Social Welfare Appeals
Chapter 11 - Controls Over the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment

9:30 am

Mr. John McKeon:

At any point, approximately half of our staff are working remotely. Some of them would be working remotely on a full-time basis. In other offices, we have staff rotating in and out under the so-called hybrid or blended working model. At one level, it has not had an impact. As I said earlier, we have managed to protect and improve service performance on claim processing and so on. At another level, we would generally have hotlines for Deputies in all of our scheme areas. In one of our scheme areas, the performance has slipped a little because that has to be staffed physically in the office. As we have only a limited number of staff in the office, we have been prioritising customer calls. There have been some impacts, but I do not think they have been significant.