Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 7, 10, 13, 16, 27 and 32 together.

The live register has increased from 207,100 in May 2008 to 396,871 at the end of May 2009, an unprecedented increase of more than 96%. I assure the House that staff in the Department are working extremely hard to process claims as expeditiously as is possible, having regard to the conditions of the schemes.

The average processing time for claims decided in May was 3.68 weeks for jobseeker's benefit and 6.35 weeks for jobseeker's allowance. This is the average nationally and there are fluctuations between offices. The length of time it takes to process claims varies depending on the complexity of the claim, the availability of the necessary documentation from the applicant or his or her employer and, in the case of jobseeker's allowance, the need to carry out additional inquires, including assessment of means and whether the claimant satisfies the habitual residence condition. Furthermore, processing times can vary from office to office for a number of reasons, including increased claim load, the number of staff vacancies, the duration of such vacancies and the turnover of staff in the office which impacts on the overall level of experience in the office.

At the end of May, a total 70,363 claims were awaiting a decision, of which 26,437 were jobseeker's benefit claims and 43,926 jobseeker's allowance claims. This compares to a total of 71,885 awaiting a decision at the end of April. I am making available tabular statements showing the number of claims awaiting a decision at the end of May and the average processing time for claims decided in May for each local and branch office. Local offices do not operate strictly within county boundaries and customers can be served by a local office outside their county boundary where the location of the office is more convenient to them. Consequently, statistics of number of claims awaiting a decision on a county basis are not available.

As I outlined, as a result of staffing reviews in 2008 and again in recent months, some 300 extra staff have been assigned to local offices, new central support units and the Department's inspectorate since May 2008. This includes 90 temporary staff who have been appointed to local offices around the country pending the assignment of permanent staff. Arrangements are also in train to allocate a further 24 inspector posts.

At the same time, the Department has been examining all aspects of the work associated with the processing of claims and streamlining them wherever possible without compromising our scheme controls. There has been a significant increase in productivity in local offices during 2009, with almost 251,500 claims for local office schemes decided from January to May 2009 as compared to 146,500 in the same period in 2008.

As many local offices are very close to capacity as regards accommodating further staff, we have established from 25 May five central decision units in Dublin, Sligo, Finglas, Carrick-on-Shannon and, most recently, Roscommon. A further central support unit is to be established in Tallaght early next month.

While acknowledging that some claims are more complicated than others and will, therefore, take longer than the average time to decide, processing times in some areas are still too long. I assure Deputies we are doing our best to reduce them. I fully appreciate that becoming unemployed is a very difficult time in a person's life and those who become unemployed need to secure access to financial and other supports as quickly as possible.

See this speech in context