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

A transition to a new information technology system in August led to a number of people on illness benefit receiving partial or no payments during recent months. Following remedial action taken by the Department in recent days, however, payment levels have now returned to normal. Action taken on two occasions last week led to 54,000 payments being issued. The normal activity is 50,000 payments. Unless Deputy Brassil has information to the contrary, every single person due an outstanding payment this week received his or her payment this week. Some people are still awaiting arrears from previous weeks, but every single person entitled to illness benefit in the last week has received a payment in the last week.

I am not happy with our communications over the couple of weeks. Most people in our Department and in this House will accept that our Department is especially customer-focused and is particularly engaged in communications. More than 6,000 people work, week in and week out-----

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