Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Department's document record and information management programme is being rolled out, in tandem with what is called service delivery modernisation. That has been underway for a number of different claims. The scanning of medical documents in the social welfare services office in Longford started in November 2010. At the beginning of September 2011, scanning was extended to include carer's allowance application forms and associated documentation. This is part of a very large modernisation process and is ongoing at the moment. We hope to have large elements of it fully completed in a relatively short period of time. We have allocated extra resources. After I became Minister, I appointed extra appeal officers. Extra work has also been provided for.

The Deputy must understand that the volume of applications has risen very significantly. This scheme has grown very dramatically in terms of the number of applications that have been received, both for the carer's allowance and for the half-rate carer's allowance. We are trying to improve the systems to provide a better service.

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