Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

With the increase in the number of people applying for unemployment payments in particular, staff in social welfare offices have been working extremely hard to process claims as quickly as possible.

Productivity has increased significantly. Nearly 155,000 claims were processed in local offices in the last quarter of 2008. That includes the one family payment. This compares with less than 89,000 in the last quarter of 2007, representing an increase of 74%.

I know that processing times in some areas are still too long and I assure Deputies that we are doing our best to reduce them. I appreciate that becoming unemployed is a very difficult time in a person's life and that they need to get access to financial and other supports as quickly as possible. To this end, extra staff have already been appointed to social welfare offices, while more are also on the way. An additional 31 staff were assigned to 15 local offices following a review of the number of staffing levels in local offices in May and June last year.

Following a further review late last year, it was decided to put an extra 115 staff in place. A total of 57 of these have already taken up work, while start dates have been agreed for a further 19 staff over the next two to three weeks. Work is ongoing to complete the assignment of the remaining 39 staff as quickly as possible.

In order to maximise the number of people paid before Christmas, a temporary central decisions unit was set up in Dublin city centre for three weeks at Christmas. Following on from the success of this initiative, four more such units are being set up in Dublin, Sligo, Finglas and Carrick-on-Shannon. Each unit will have ten staff.

In addition to this, a further 16 social welfare inspectors are being assigned to various locations throughout the country to do means and other work associated with processing claims for jobseeker's payments. That brings to 202 the number of additional staff being assigned to local offices and claim processing roles.

A number of process improvement initiatives are also being implemented with a view to reducing processing times. For example, under a new initiative introduced in Dundalk last December, 40% of applicants for jobseeker's payments are having their claims taken and decided upon during an appointment with a deciding officer. This initiative will be extended to other offices on a phased basis.

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