Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 14:

In page 6, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following:

3.—The Minister shall, within 2 months of the enactment of this Act, report to the Houses of the Oireachtas, on the progress made in reducing the processing time for social welfare payments.".

This amendment is to ensure attention is paid to the length of time taken to process welfare payments. I am particularly concerned about delays in branch offices. While there have been slight improvements, and I am sure the Minister will give the statistics for jobseeker's benefit instead of jobseeker's allowance, this is still a problem that has not been adequately tackled by the Minister or his Department and it needs more attention. People are suffering as a result of the delays, particularly those who do not automatically get the supplementary welfare payment. These people are falling further into debt as they wait extremely long periods for social welfare payments.

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