Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State. I know it is not his direct remit, and I appreciate him coming in and delivering the script, but there is very little information in relation to how many applications people are currently waiting for, and there is no information in relation to numbers waiting in excess of three, six and 12 months. I ask the Minister if State to bring that back in order that the information could be provided to us by way of supplementary information. It would paint a picture for us. I do not think it is endemic to my part of Cork. Deputy Eoghan Kenny is in north Cork, and I assume he is hearing the same. I would appreciate if the Minister of State could take that back to the officials to give us numbers of how many people are waiting and for certain periods of time be they in excess of six, 12, 18 months and so on.

The Minister of State said that any system needs to be agile. That goes without saying, but I am genuinely saying to him that from the cases I have been dealing with, the system is far from agile. We are talking about turnaround times of three months just to get an acknowledgement and a letter back. All being fair, if people submitted the correct information at the time of application, there might be no need for supplementary information and all that, and I take that as a given.

Nonetheless, the system is far from agile because, like any system, in particular an online system, there will be mistakes and errors, people ticking the wrong boxes or whatever. I do not think it is fair to describe the system as agile.

I would appreciate if the Minister of State could make available the numbers I have requested. The reply states the Department is working actively to reduce appeal wait times, but it has provided nothing in terms of statistics or facts. Rather, it is about broad strokes such as a reference to reduce appeal wait times. The very least I would expect from an answer is for the Minister of State to say the Department has reduced appeal wait times by 20% in the past year and by 40% over the past three years. Again, the answer is lacking detail. I would appreciate if the Minister of the State could take my comments back to the Minister.

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