Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My office has been contacted about this issue more frequently in recent months. I put on record my thanks and those of the staff who work at my constituency office in Limerick to the staff in the regional office of the Department of Social Protection, who do tremendous work, including especially earlier in the pandemic, and that has been, and is, very much appreciated.

I have been contacted by many Limerick residents who have applied for urgent payments such as the additional needs payment but who have not received a timely response to the status of their application. As the Minister of State will be aware, this is an exceptional payment that can support families when unexpected issues and essential expenses arise that they cannot afford to pay from their weekly income. Traditionally, the queries my office receives regarding this payment are in response to sudden expenses such as help with funeral costs, temporary assistance while awaiting a decision from the appeals office or following an unexpected incident such as a fire in the family home. More and more, however, we face queries on this payment from people who are finding their energy and food costs too high. The number of exceptional needs payments made towards heating and household bills has, historically, been quite low. For instance, in the first months of 2022, only 1,001 payments were made in the entire State. The community welfare service delivers the supplementary welfare allowance scheme as well. Unfortunately, the feedback we are receiving from applicants suggests that applications to the community welfare service are taking a very long time to process.

Since the sudden centralisation of the community welfare service during the summer, I have observed two major failings, the first of which is that people awaiting a decision from the appeals office are now being advised not to apply for the supplementary welfare allowance because the wait time is likely to be longer than the wait for an appeal decision itself. That was never previously the case. The second major failing is that those who have been allocated social houses are waiting a minimum of eight to ten weeks to receive their new home kit, which would enable them to buy some of the bare necessities such as cooking appliances and beds. This is putting a severe strain on the most vulnerable families.

I might give the Minister of State an idea of some of the people I am talking about. One lady I am dealing with has two autistic children, who, as she will be aware, need a daily routine. She previously rented for 13 years and was delighted to be offered a local authority home in May. Due to delays, she received the keys in August and, unfortunately, could not apply for the new home kit until then because she had to wait until she had the keys. It is ten weeks later and she has not received the payment. Two autistic children are not eating properly because they have no fridge or cooker. Another person I am dealing with is an elderly man who was placed in housing specifically for elderly people. He had no furniture of his own because he had rented privately for years. He has applied for the new home kit for furniture and is currently sleeping on the floor because the additional needs payment has not yet been approved.

These delays are, in many cases, turning what should be a celebratory event - gaining a home forever - into a nightmare. Other delays are leaving innumerable people without any sort of income for months on end. I appreciate the recent response from the Department outlining that an estimated 63% of payments are decided within four weeks of the application and I think the next 2% are decided within eight weeks, but my local area, where the staff do exceptional work, now has delays of up to ten weeks. Furthermore, that response outlined that a back-office team undertakes preparatory work on applications and that this process frees up community welfare officers, CWOs, from such administrative tasks. Will the Minister of State outline how these applications are dealt with? Are they triaged, with the most urgent cases addressed first, as was suggested in a recent reply to a parliamentary question, or is it first come first served, as I have been told is the case by CWOs?

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