Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

All decisions taken by the Department’s deciding officers and designated persons are appealable to the chief appeals officer. Approximately 85% of all claims are awarded and only 1% of all claims are appealed annually. It is a very small number. Nevertheless my Department is genuinely concerned that these cases be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Significant efforts and resources have been devoted to reforming the appeals process in recent years. As a result, appeal processing times improved from what was a staggering 52.5 weeks for an oral hearing in 2011 to 26 weeks in 2017 and from 25 weeks for a summary decision in 2011 to 19 weeks in 2017. The most recent figures, for the period January to August 2018, are at 30 weeks for an oral hearing and 25.2 weeks for a summary decision. This matter has been raised with me on a number of occasions. It is too long. We need to improve it. There are a number of reasons for this. One of the things we are going to attempt to do is simplify the carers allowance application form so that the process speeds up and people are not waiting four months to get a rejection and another four or five months to do their appeal. We are doing everything.

We have had some great successes with the domiciliary care allowance application. That was at one stage taking up to 26 weeks but, because of a redesign undertaken with DCA Warriors and other interested bodies that were using the forms and finding them complicated, we designed a new form. The application time for domiciliary care allowance is now down to five weeks. I have every expectation that we will have the same results when we introduce the new carers allowance form. I hear the Deputy's concerns loud and clear.

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