Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Department is committed to providing a high quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are issued as expeditiously as possible having regard to the eligibility conditions which apply.

These conditions vary between the two jobseeker schemes and involve, among other things, the need to establish the person's social insurance record, establish the person's identity or place of habitual residence and the assessment of means where appropriate. In some cases delays arise where people fail to supply all pertinent information in support of their application.

The level of inflows to the live register over the period January to September 2008, inclusive, was 311,660 as compared to 220,652 over the corresponding period last year, representing an increase of over 41%. The average weekly inflow was 7,991 as compared to 5,658 in 2007. At 5 October 2008, there were 39,133 jobseeker payment claims pending in local and branch offices, made up of 16,857 jobseeker benefit and 22,276 jobseeker allowance claims. The average processing time for applications in September was three weeks for jobseeker's benefit claims and six weeks for jobseeker's allowance claims.

The Deputy will be aware that anyone who is under financial pressure while awaiting a decision on their claim for a jobseeker's payment can apply for supplementary welfare allowance which is subject to a means test and other qualifying conditions. The Department delivers a frontline service through a network of 61 local offices and 65 branch offices countrywide. Local offices are staffed by civil servants while the branch offices operate under a contract for service. All decisions on claims are made in the local office. The overall performance in any individual office in processing claims can be adversely affected by a wide variety of factors, including increased inflow of claims, staff vacancies and the duration of such vacancies, and the turnover of staff in the office.

The Department has put a range of measures in place to deal with the extra workload arising from the increase in the live register. These include additional posts assigned, use of temporary staff to fill vacancies pending the appointment of permanent staff, the extension of temporary staff contracts in certain offices, increased overtime and the prioritisation of work. These measures are being reviewed on a continual basis.

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