Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Snodaigh made the point that 60 days may be too short a timeframe. With the resources etc. available to the Department, that may very well be correct. I am not caught up with 60 days. What I am trying to deal with is the situation of some unfortunate who has been turned down for social welfare. The statistics from the Department show that in more than 50% of cases, he or she may have been wrongly turned down. If he or she goes to appeal, he or she will go to his or her local public representative to say that he or she was months applying for carer's allowance, disability allowance or whatever but now he or she has gone to appeal. He or she will ask how much longer he or she must wait. What I want to do is to give the person some element of certainty and that we can say it will not go beyond a certain period of time. I still think that is valid. Some of these people do not get supplementary allowance, so they will be literally living from hand to mouth. What is being adjudicated on is whether the person is entitled to social welfare in this country. That will be a very big thing for the person, probably the most important thing in his or her life. We want some element of certainty to reduce that worry and stress and that a person will know that a decision will have to be made within a particular timeframe.

The Minister of State mentioned that there are various steps in the process, with which I agree. Perhaps the Department, as an alternative or on its own initiative, will produce a circular which fixes a maximum period of time for each process, for example, the process whereby the deciding officer must prepare his or her observations and send them on to the appeals office. If there was a specific timeframe for each of those processes, it would certainly help.

The Minister of State said that when somebody looks for an oral hearing, he or she will automatically get one but that has not been my experience. I ask the Minister of State to look at that because if somebody requests an oral hearing, it should be automatic.

See this speech in context