Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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I wish to discuss the amount of time it takes to process disability allowance and disability benefit claims. Recently, I spoke to a community welfare officer who told me that either 6,500 or 8,500 claims are in that office at present awaiting decision. To make my point I will recount two anecdotal cases.

A man claiming jobseeker's benefit working at home with a disk saw mutilated his finger. He contacted the social welfare office and stated what had happened. The jobseeker's benefit payment was stopped immediately and the man was told he would have to apply for disability benefit, which he did. I must stress this man would not know the system inside out. The accident happened last March and his claim for disability allowance arrived in the office on 27 May. On 4 October he received a reply to state that he was refused. He was told by the social welfare office to give up his jobseeker's benefit because he was not available for work because of his injury. He applied for disability allowance and was refused. He was told that his case had been considered by a medical assessor who expressed the opinion that he was unsuitable for disability allowance because all of the required medical criteria were not satisfied. He meets both required criteria.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House and I appreciate and understand that he inherited the Department. Will he tell the House what medical qualifications do the medical assessors have? To the best of my knowledge they have none. If any medic saw the state of this man's hand and finger he or she would not disallow him disability benefits. We will appeal it but I believe this man has been victimised by the system. He has not received a cent since the accident happened last March and it is now October. I do not know how long it will take for this appeal to go before the chief appeals officer, who will not see his hand either, but he has received no payment whatsoever since March last.

In another case, while in hospital for a minor procedure there was serious harm done to a neighbour of mine, so much so that today I applied for an E111 form where he must go to England for treatment. Ten months ago that man applied for disability allowance. He has been refused because he was considered by a medical assessor to be unsuitable for disability allowance because all the medical criteria listed were not satisfied. That is ten months ago, and his wife and two children have got nothing from the State. In those ten months he has spent 83 days in hospital and he has not got a shilling from the State. Will the Minister tell me the number of medical assessors in his Department who can make the assessment, without seeing the injuries of these two particular persons, that they cannot work?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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First, I thank Deputy Tom Sheahan for raising the question on the Adjournment. I assure him that, within the law and the terms of the scheme, every effort is being made to deal with all applications under the various schemes as expeditiously as possible. As he is probably aware, there was a significant increase in the number of applications under the various schemes in recent years.

There are currently 6,477 disability allowance claims awaiting decision and this represents 6.4% of the total number currently in receipt of disability allowance, DA. The numbers in receipt of disability allowance have increased year on year. At the end of September 2010, there were 101,042 in receipt of the allowance, representing an increase of 4,970 or 5% over the number of recipients in January 2009. The average number of weeks taken to decide a disability allowance claim in September 2010 was 10.69 weeks, and 59% of all claims were decided within 12 weeks.

To be eligible for disability allowance, a claimant must satisfy a medical assessment, a means test and be habitually resident in the State. All aspects of the claim must be decided before the customer is notified of the decision.

The processing time for individual disability allowance claims may vary in accordance with their relative complexity in terms of the three main criteria to which I referred. Certain claims have to be referred to social welfare inspectors for means investigation and this can add to the overall processing times. One third of the claims awaiting decision are currently with inspectors. In addition, factors outside the Department's control can have an impact, for example, incomplete application forms, the supply of relevant information by the customer, that is, bank account details, details of spouses earnings, information from employers or third parties.

Anyone who is under financial pressure while awaiting a decision on his or her claim can apply for supplementary welfare allowance from his or her local community welfare officer.

My Department is committed to delivering the best possible service to its customers. Operational processes and procedures and the organisation of work are continually reviewed in all areas of the Department, including disability allowance section, to ensure that claims are processed and decided in the most efficient and expeditious way possible, having regard to the eligibility conditions that apply to each scheme.

Measures introduced by the Department to address the efficiency of DA claim processing include the review of existing processes and procedures with the objective of reducing delays in claim processing, the review of ongoing staffing deployment and the judicious application of overtime working.

An increasing number of claims are now desk assessed for means purposes, thus reducing the numbers being sent to social welfare inspectors and improving the overall times for claim processing. With regard to medical assessment, all claims are now being desk assessed by the medical assessors of the Department, thus obviating the need to call the vast majority of claimants for medical examinations.

This is where certification from the medical practitioners who fill up the application forms is so vital. In an effort to speed up the operation, and rather than call everybody for medical examination as there are many black and white cases of eligibility for disability allowance, we are trying to have better certification from the doctors coming in so that the doctor assessing does not need to see the patient because he or she already has the information from the original medical examination, in other words, that we take it that the examination carried out by the applicant's doctor is thorough and gives us the information. I am sure the Deputy will agree that this approach makes sense. Of course, it leads to a situation where some applicants will not be happy with the decision. In such a case, obviously, the person can look for a revised decision and then we can carry out a physical examination.

I have been encouraging the Department to look at, as a first process, having better documentation coming in because we can only make decisions on documentation coming in. If we get good documentation and if it answers the questions clearly - remember in many cases it is disability to work is the issue - then we can make quicker decisions and need not have to physically have a medical officer check everybody. Obviously, however, if that does not resolve the issue, then one must fall back on the physical examination, and, of course, the right of appeal also exists.

One argument I have with some commentators is that they are always on about policy. I agree with the Deputy, that for the ordinary punter in the street it does not matter how good the policy is if the actual delivery of the service does not match it. I could have the best policies as Minister for Social Protection but unless the person can get the payment to which he or she feels entitled, or get a fair process to show he or she is not entitled to the payment after the appeals process, all of the policy is a waste of time.

We are trying systematically, in view of the increased number of applicants to get a speedier decision making process in the first round, have a review within the Department, and then one goes to appeal. Even at appeal stage, if new information is provided we go back to the deciding officer and ask him or her to review it again before we go through the appeals mechanism. In that way, we would hope in a range of processes that we can reduce processing time and give a much more satisfactory service.

I must state on behalf of the appeals office, in justification, that the number of appeals grew significantly with the number of applications, but that is cold comfort to the public. Therefore, they are working with me proactively to try see how we reduce the waiting times for decisions, both at the first application and on appeal.

Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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With the Acting Chairman, Deputy Wall's, indulgence, could the Minister inform me what qualifications the medical assessors have?

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I could get that detail. My understanding is they are medical practitioners. On that matter, the Chief Medical Officer, the person with whom I mainly have had dealings in the Department, is a very fine medical practitioner and I understand is very experienced in occupational medicine, and I have found him to be a very fair minded person. He is working to try see how all of these procedures can be improved. He has done a great deal of work, even on the design of the certification so that we manage to get the information we require to make good decisions. It is partly medical and partly also related to the design of forms, etc., so that the information we get in is perhaps better than it was in the past.

While I am taking the Deputy into another subject here, I genuinely feel this is an important matter where we all can make progress. As he is probably aware, often doctors give a certificate to an applicant for all sorts of schemes only outlining the medical condition. However, as I stated in the Dáil committee today, schemes often have an issue, not only on what is the actual medical condition but on whether, for example, a person applying for carer's allowance needs full-time care and attention or a person applying for disability allowance or illness benefit is capable for work taking into account his or her qualifications, experience, etc., depending on one's qualifications and experience, and the type of work one does. A roofer in a wheelchair could not operate, but the Deputy and I know other people in wheelchairs who are in very senior roles because they have desk jobs. From my personal experience as a Deputy, one of the problems up to now has been that it was not enough to get the medical assessment, but that the next issue was whether the person was capable for work in the opinion of the original doctor taking into account whether he or she was labouring or had a desk job, and the kind of work concerned. There is work we can do to speed up the process by trying to get that information in the first round and save all of us, particularly the applicants for our schemes, much heartache and grief.

I sometimes hear people saying that the Department is holding back for some financial reason. I can assure the Deputy nothing is further from the truth for a great many reasons which he can figure out. With the amount of money involved, if the allowance is given in the end, there is no saving for the Department because we give the arrears to the date of application. There is no messing like that going on; everything is done to the staff's best ability. There is no hidden agenda.

That said, we can do the job better and the Department is open to doing so. I have been very impressed going around to the country to the various offices. I was down in Killarney recently where we spent two hours going through all of the mechanisms there discussing how we can have better delivery mechanisms right throughout the Department. My experience of the staff is that they are definitely up for it. They are fantastic staff committed to the work they do and I believe we can do things better in the future.