Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

There was a 46% increase in the number of appeals received by the social welfare appeals office in 2009 when compared to 2008, which in itself was 27% greater than the number received in 2007. I am advised by the social welfare appeals office that as of 26 October 2010 20,936 cases are being processed through various stages of the appeals system, 10, 227 of which are receiving attention in the social welfare appeals office; 9,277 of which are receiving attention in the Department and 1,432 of which are awaiting responses from appellants. As these figures indicate, the nature of the appeals process and its various stages mean that at any one time there are a significant proportion of appeals on hands which have not yet reached the stage of being ready for the attention of appeals officers.

A total of 20,171 appeals were finalised in the period January to end September 2010. The overall average time taken to process all appeals was 27.5 weeks. Of these, 5212 or 25.8% were revised decisions by deciding officers following receipt of the appeal and 2,267 or 11.2%, were withdrawn. The remaining 12,692 decisions were made by appeals officers as follows: 8,701 or 68.6% by summary decisions and 3,991 or 31.4% following an oral hearing. The average time taken to process a summary decision was 28 weeks and the average time to process an oral hearing was 44.5 weeks. A considerable period of time is added to the process when an oral hearing is required because of the logistics involved in such process.

During 2009, 59% of all appeal cases were dealt with by way of oral hearing but due to some of the initiatives outlined below this has been reduced to 31% to date in 2010. To be fair to all appellants, the vetting of appeals and the arranging of oral hearings are dealt with in chronological order. Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

Of the 27.5 weeks overall average, 13 weeks was attributable to ongoing processes within the social welfare appeals office; 12.4 weeks was attributable to work in progress within the Department and 2.1 weeks was due to responses awaited from appellants. Of the appeals finalised, 8,69 or 43% were favourable to the appellant; 9,207 or 46% were unfavourable and the remaining 2,267 or 11% were withdrawn.

There has been a significant increase in the number of appeals being made to the social welfare appeals office. Currently, it is anticipated that some 33,000 appeals will be received for 2010, which is compared to roughly 15,000 a year in the years up to and including 2007. The scale of the increase has resulted in significant delays in the processing of appeals. Improving these processing times is a major objective of the office and, in that regard, a number of initiatives have been put in place to enhance the capacity of the office to deal with the current caseload and inflows, namely, three additional appeals officers have been assigned to the office since January 2009; additional staff have been assigned to the administration area of the office; more emphasis is now being placed on dealing with appeals on a summary basis so as to increase productivity; a project to improve the business processes in the office was undertaken resulting in a number of improvements being implemented; and significant enhancements have been made to the office's IT and phone systems. In addition, it was decided to use experienced retired appeals officers strictly on a short term basis to supplement the current resources, eight of whom have been operating on a part-time basis since July.

I am assured by the chief appeals officer that she is keeping current processes under continuous review with a view to achieving a more effective throughput of appeals, while ensuring that any progress does not conflict with due process in terms of the rights of appellants and adherence to the requirements of natural justice.

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