Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Community welfare officers are physically on site daily in more than 50 Intreo centres, where they are available to be seen without an appointment during business hours Monday to Friday. In addition to meeting citizens in the Intreo centres, branch offices and Department of Social Protection offices, community welfare officers can facilitate an appointment within a short time after someone requires such a meeting at an agreed location, including a person's home.

Staffing levels have been maintained in the community welfare service nationwide in recent years, even during times when demands on the service decreased. This reflects my commitment to continuing to support the delivery of locally based services to clients. Currently, 412 people across all grades are working in the community welfare service, including 323 community welfare officers.

Due to the increased number of applications received, agreement was reached with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform for approximately 74 additional staff for the community welfare service. These staff will be at all grades and will increase the capacity of community welfare officers to focus on making decisions relating to complex applications and meeting clients locally as required. Recruitment has commenced and I expect the additional staff will be in place during quarter 1 this year. In the meantime, the Department has assigned an additional 30 staff to the service.

There are no backlogs of additional needs payment applications at present and work on hand is within the scheme's normal processing levels. Complete applications are finalised within two weeks and there is currently less than two weeks' work on hand. Where it is clear a person has an immediate need, every effort is made to ensure he or she will receive a payment on the same day. Approximately 10% of community welfare service payments to customers are made on this basis.

We ran an extensive advertising campaign to make people aware this is the safety net to be used whenever help is needed. A lot of applications have come in and I am glad because that is what we want to see. We processed 97,000 applicants in 2022 alone and we have put more resources into the service. We are committed to providing this service, which is so necessary.

See this speech in context