Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The first thing I paid attention to when I entered the Department was the length of the appeals process. As a constituency politician, I am more than aware of the problem. In fairness to the appeals office, which is independent, it has taken a huge number of steps to deal with the large increase in the number of applications.

It is obvious that many decisions are now being revised before they go through a full appeal because the applicants are giving information on appeal that they are not giving in the initial application. It is interesting to look at the statistics I gave this afternoon that show we must look at ways to encourage people to give the information at the first stage that obviates the necessity for an appeal because many successful appeals are based on further information being provide the second time around. I should look at Deputy Durkan's point, that there should be a way to engineer a situation where people do not feel the need to appeal.

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