Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Tá áthas orm an deis seo a ghlacadh chun labhairt ar an ábhar seo.

I appreciate the fact that the Labour Party has tabled this motion recognising the difficulties people are experiencing. This time last year none of us would have imagined the current scale of unemployment, nor the terrible atrocities that have happened in Northern Ireland. It has happened so quickly that the whole environment has changed for our country. I wish to assure the House, however, that we fully appreciate the difficulties for people who are losing their jobs. People who have worked all their lives never anticipated that they would ever have to sign on. That in itself is a stress for them before they ever get to a social welfare office. Naturally, we are trying to ensure not only that the right financial supports are available, but also that people can get them as quickly as possible.

Due to the numbers signing on we have had to ensure that our staff are working to full capacity. I have to say that they certainly are working extremely hard to deal with the increased number of claims, and productivity increased by 74% between the last quarter of 2007 and the final quarter of 2008. The numbers on the live register are undoubtedly very stark. There would of course be others who have been making claims also. When one sees an increase of 165,000 — a rise of 87% — between February 2008 and last month it puts particular pressure on those affected as well as on their families. In addition, the increased numbers put pressure on staff in social welfare offices and the difficulties of the financial situation generally have placed pressure on the Exchequer.

Social welfare staff have made their best efforts to try to meet all those needs. Some 246 additional staff have been allocated since last May to help minimise delays in claim processing. They are not extra staff coming into the public service, but come from other Departments. Some 190 of them have been allocated to local social welfare offices around the country. However, many local offices have reached, or are close to reaching, capacity in terms of the number of staff that can be accommodated. While the Office of Public Works has been tasked with finding new accommodation for local offices in some areas, we are also setting up a number of central decision units around the country to ease the burden on those offices that are under pressure. Four such units are being set up initially — with ten staff each — while it is expected that more will be established in the coming months. These are just processing the applications and making decisions, so they will release the burden from some local offices back into these central units.

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