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

We have increased staff numbers. There are 74 additional staff to be assigned to the community welfare service. In the interim, we assigned 30 social welfare inspectors to the service to make sure claims were dealt with speedily. There is no backlog and we are down to two weeks. That is fair.

Though online applications do not apply to the case the Deputy spoke about, I was pleased to see when my officials went through the statistics that there were as many people over 65 years old using the online service as there were 18- to 24-year-olds. It goes to show more and more senior citizens are going digital like the rest of us. There are options: go online, pick up the phone, call into the social welfare office, or, if needed, a member of staff will go out to the applicant.

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