Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Thank you. As I have not been speaking in the House since the Ceann Comhairle returned, I welcome him back. It is great to see him back in the Chair.

I welcome the increases. At the time of the budget, I said that I welcome the changes in the means test for the fuel allowance because many people fell outside the fuel allowance by a small margin, so that is very good. The reason I want to speak this evening is to raise three important points with regard to waiting times. The first point concerns community welfare. Just today, I had to contact the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for somebody who has been waiting 12 weeks for an answer from community welfare. The whole idea of community welfare is that it is an emergency; it is called an exceptional needs payment, so people cannot wait 12 weeks. This is putting unnecessary pressure on the scant resources of the St. Vincent de Paul. We have to do something in regard to the timeframes for community welfare. In many areas, particularly rural areas, people cannot get in to see a human being anymore. They have to leave a message on a mobile number and they may or may not be contacted. I understand everyone is under pressure but people going to community welfare are under pressure and that is the reason they are going there.

There have been serious delays in the processing of the fuel allowance and waiting times average ten weeks for the people who are coming in to us. Again, fuel allowance is for fuel that people need now, for this week or next week, and it is not something they can afford to get in a lump sum. We are in the winter now and people need that money.

The other issue I want to raise concerns the delays in the processing of the working family payment. I specifically raise these three issues because they are payments that people need immediately, or at least within a two-week timeframe, and, as I said, community welfare is for an emergency situation. With regard to working family payment, there is this crazy situation with social welfare where people will be sent a form for an exceptional needs payment and told to apply for that in the interim. However, once they are working, they are not going to qualify for that, so while they are waiting on their working family payment, they might be living on just two days of work. We need to address the waiting times for those payments, including fuel allowance. Those are three areas where people need that money nearly immediately, or certainly within a reasonable timeframe. I believe two weeks is reasonable.

For community welfare, we need to figure out a system where people can go in and speak to somebody. That was the system a number of years ago and it was great because people could potentially get money there and then for their situation. A huge number of people are being rejected for community welfare as they are being told that it does not fall within the guidelines and that it is something they should have budgeted for. That does not take account of the massive increases we have all seen in everything. People last year might have been able to budget but this year they cannot due to the increasing costs.

There needs to be a review of the waiting times for those three payments. Community welfare in general needs to become more adaptable. That is why we need to go back to having someone for people to speak to, so they can explain the situation. That is easier because the CWO will often understand more when speaking to the person.

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