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

The Deputy brought a number of incidents to my attention, which is particularly useful for me because we can learn from and act on that. The information pertaining to the people the Deputy has raised with me is confidential. We have gone through all of that and have come back to the Deputy with an answer.

The intention is not to lose documents or anything like that. The tracking of the receipt of documentation submitted to the office is being followed up. We are going through the issues the Deputy has raised. We do not want this to happen. We want people to get their payments efficiently. The Deputy will appreciate the thinking behind this. There is a lot of administrative work.

Community welfare officers are very skilled people in what they do. It was felt that some administrative work could be done by somebody else and community welfare officers could then continue to deal with people face-to-face. They want to see people and hear them on the other end of the phone or whatever else. There are no delays in any of the support hubs and all claims received by hubs were made ready for decision as quickly as possible and returned to the local community welfare officer within a short time for decision.

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