Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

That is the advantage of having an appeals process and it is an important part of the process. Given that 2 million applications are made every year, I thought the number of appeals was small. The major difference in making the appeal is that one is allowed to enclose additional medical information with the appeal. Sometimes that makes the difference. Often people do not supply sufficient medical information in the first part of their application and when invited to send more it seems to make the difference. I cannot comment on putting social welfare appeals on a statutory basis.

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