Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

If the Deputy was really concerned about resources, he would have been more cautious in his own use of them. He has been a particularly costly example of the use of resources. Perhaps if he used fewer, we would have more to spend on the families about whom he is talking.

The Department is committed to providing a quality service for all its customers. The family income supplement scheme provides income support for employees on low earnings with families and is designed to preserve the incentive to take up or remain in employment in circumstances where the employee might be only marginally better off than if he or she was claiming other social welfare payments. The average waiting time for new FIS claims at the end of October was 18 weeks and for renewal applications, 19 weeks. At the end of October, there were 7,000 new FIS applications and 7,800 renewal applications awaiting a decision. The volume of FIS claims in hand and the delays in processing are, as the Deputy acknowledged, a consequence of the continuing strong claim intake. This is also the case in the other areas to which the Deputy referred. There are substantial increases in the number applying for social welfare benefits across the board, particularly family income supplement, carer's allowance, domiciliary care allowance, etc. I am happy that, despite the current economic difficulties, we have been able to deal with the higher volume of claims, pay out more to qualifying applicants and do so in higher numbers.

I have told the Deputy before that an in-depth business process improvement project has recently been completed for the FIS scheme. This project focused on optimising output and customer service and the elimination of backlogs. Part of the project was a detailed examination of workloads and a full assessment of existing capacity within the area and what capacity was needed to process the volume of claims, both new and renewed, received on a weekly basis. A plan has now been devised and implementation commenced on 5 November. This plan sees the normal weekly new claim and renewal intake processed without delay, while the backlog has been ring-fenced. There is a focused team assigned to this work and a clear plan for the elimination of the backlog. The first step taken to eliminate permanently the build-up of backlogs of FIS claims is to have sufficient capacity and suitable structures and processes in place to deal with the weekly intake. This has been done in the case of the FIS scheme and the first week of operation has been very successful, with target output achieved.

I congratulate the staff in my Department who have transferred to new and improved business processes with a view to offering a better service to our many customers. That is not to say the backlog of claims awaiting decision is being ignored or that work has ceased thereon. On the contrary, as the Deputy has been advised, a separate team, with additional temporary resources, has been identified and is already assigned to and working on the claims in question. I am sure the Deputy welcomes this, even if he is a little down over social welfare staff working in Donegal. The work being done in Donegal is highly welcome.

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