Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is correct in saying the Department of Social Protection's systems are separate and, to some degree, in silos. Ultimately, with the development of modern IT and cloud computing systems and other developments, one can envisage a situation where over time they will be brought together. From my experience as a Minister for the past year and three quarters, one has to be very careful when one changes systems that the person receiving the income from that system is not placed at a serious disadvantage. Further to Deputy Willie O'Dea's question about disability allowance applications and applications for domiciliary care allowance, we upgraded that system, but the upgrade took a long time to complete because we had to pay existing clients, include new applications in the new system and deal with the backlog. One thing I have learned is that it takes some time, but the Department is working on the system and will develop it. We have already achieved a significant number of serious reforms and, as I said to Deputy Joan Collins, people using the new offices are finding that the payment process is much faster. For instance, the office for in Donegal which is now handling FIS payments has made tremendous improvements in its processing times with the result that there is no backlog. Therefore, it does produce results, but it takes time to manage the changeover.

See this speech in context