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

First, the vast majority of schemes that are appealed are allowance schemes, all of which are means tested, so it is not fair to say on the one hand that I am expecting people to live without a penny and when I say that people do not have to wait but have the option of going to their social welfare office to then say they will be means tested. Most of these schemes are means tested anyway. People would not apply or qualify for them if their means were not within that realm.

Second, there are almost 6,000 people working in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. I cannot answer the question about whether we have asked for more people in the appeals office. However, we have tried, particularly in the difficult economic circumstances in the last number of years, to do more with the people we have. In fairness, one can see the result in the fact that our appeal waiting times have come down drastically. The reasons are that we have improved efficiencies in how we collect our information, we have provided people with new forms to make it simpler and we have tried to help people to understand that they do not need to hold back some information for appeals because they expect that everything will be rejected in the first instance.

My main message is that, first, 85% of all applications that are made are found in the affirmative. In fact, the social welfare Bill tomorrow will provide for automating that to make it even faster for people. Second, nobody should be waiting without any money. If people are, they can go to their local community welfare office and we will look after them. We will continue to try to improve the turnaround level for decisions.

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