Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

In fact, 230 additional staff have been in place in the past few months doing processing. In addition, 16 more inspectors are doing means testing. There has been a significant increase in the number of staff and there has also been an increase in productivity. New systems have been put in place and the appointments system is just one of them. The Dundalk office spearheaded that system. It ran into some difficulties, overcame them and it is now possible to spread them out. In order to counteract the delays in some of the offices, such as the branch offices, we have set up four central decision units which do nothing else. They do not meet the public but the forms are sent to them. They are in Dublin, Sligo, Finglas and Carrick-on-Shannon. We have started on three new ones in Roscommon, Wexford and Tallaght.

The local office support units are helping the branch offices with claims in hand and in some cases deciding officers are spending a short time with them. When a branch office manager retires, we have considered whether it is appropriate to keep the office going in that manner. Changes have come about following retirements in Carrigaline, Loughrea and Tullamore where we replaced the branch offices with local offices because of the demand. Following a retirement in Tulla in Clare, the office was replaced with another branch. Each one is considered carefully.

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