Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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In addition to the privilege of being elected to this House, I have been afforded the honour and privilege of serving as Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on social protection. In the latter role and as an ordinary Deputy I have come face to face with the reality relating to the social welfare system on a daily basis. Irrespective of my specific responsibilities in this area, many of my colleagues and I have been inundated with representations from persons seeking to avail of social welfare benefits and entitlements, including domiciliary care allowance, invalidity pension and other allowances, and programmes and projects relating to areas such as career training, education, etc.

As everyone is aware, a huge cohort of people are dependent on and in need of assistance. The agenda for Government policy in the area of social protection was set not last February but on budget day in 2010. The Labour Party and Fine Gael voted against the budget introduced in December last year and also the subsequent Finance Act. They specifically stated they would reverse the 4% cut in social welfare rates and then fought an election on that premise and promise. The programme for Government specifically states, "We will divert staff from elsewhere in the public service to clear the social welfare appeals backlog, and introduce a consolidated appeals process". On entering Government, Fine Gael and the Labour Party restated their policy on social welfare rates and indicated that there would be no cuts. On the anniversary of the Government's first 100 days in power, this policy was again affirmed. To be fair, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, immediately recanted her previous utterings when she entered office. She has fudged direct questions on the maintenance of social welfare rates and failed to provide straight answers. This is a sure sign that the rates will be reduced.

I wish to explode two myths with immediate effect, the first of which is that the memorandums of understanding are not set in stone. When my party's spokesperson on finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, met representatives of the troika earlier in the year, he was informed that austerity must not affect the vulnerable. When representatives from Social Justice Ireland met officials from the IMF in July, Mr. Ajai Chopra echoed these words. The forthcoming budget will test the Government's mettle and oblige it to make decisions. It will be held accountable for these decisions and its actions will be weighed against the promises and commitments made earlier this year.

On its election to office, the Government stated it would renegotiate the four year plan and the interest rate relating to it. Eventually - by accident rather than design - the rate was reduced with great fanfare and, to use cycling parlance, Enda came home in the yellow jersey. However, the Taoiseach is no king of the mountains. Why could he not ring-fence the savings which will supposedly amount to almost €1 billion per year resulting from the interest rate cut and use them to safeguard social welfare rates, protect the poor, the needy and the unemployed and target detailed programmes at the skilled and unskilled in areas where there are employment opportunities such as the ICT sector? He sold dummies to many in Roscommon, Portlaoise and Loughlinstown.

The initiative of the Minister for Social Protection to tackle fraud is commendable, but it is not really new. Savings of €500 million were made in this area last year and the Minister hopes to save a further €625 million this year. It does not take a rocket scientist to identify the areas in which these savings are being made, namely, living alone allowance and lone-parent allowance and those who are working and claiming. There is no need to seek public support for major cuts by making statements on people's lifestyle choices in order to stigmatise them. This is all a smokescreen. The time people are obliged to wait for decisions on their appeals - be they in respect of claims for jobseeker's benefit or carer's allowance - is way too long. The amount of time it takes to lodge an application and then have one's appeal heard is astronomical.

The State has made provision for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We put supports in place and established entitlements on the proviso that they would be accessible and available. The representations I have received indicate that this is not the case. The staff of the Department are inundated with work and their tempers have reached boiling point. This is a crisis and the Minister must deploy additional staff resources. She must take control and make decisions in order that the current difficulties might be alleviated and that people will gain confidence in the process.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I am informed by the chief appeals officer that the number of appeals waiting to be processed is 17,655. This is a reduction of some 3,126 on the number at the same point last year when the Deputy's party was in power. Fianna Fáil created a meltdown in the economy and, thanks to its efforts, unprecedented numbers have lost either their jobs or businesses. These individuals have been obliged to apply for social welfare payments. When the Deputy referred to the increase in the number on social welfare, he was actually complaining about his own party and the depredations it visited upon the country. The Deputy's party has the singular responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of people who lost employment and their businesses because of the party's failure to deal with the banks and the disastrous decision on the bank guarantee. If the Deputy is going to lash out, perhaps he should look in the mirror and at the Fianna Fáil Party first.

The number of appeals waiting to be processed must be seen against a background where there has been a significant increase in the number of appeals from 14,070 in 2007 to 32,432 on Fianna Fáil's watch in 2010. Current indications are that there is now a slight drop in the number of appeals being received in 2011 because the economy has begun to stabilise, although unfortunately it is at a very low level. We must all fight to get the economy to recover.

The annual intake this year is still likely to be close to 30,000 for the year. In an effort to reduce the backlog of appeals, the Department made nine additional appointments to the office earlier this year on my becoming a Minister. These assignments augment the three appointments made to the office during the Fianna Fáil tenure - a massive increase - in 2010. This brings the total number of appeals officers serving in the office to 29. In addition, a number of initiatives have been undertaken with a view to increasing capacity and the combination of these initiatives and additional staff resulted in 22,226 decisions being made in the first eight months of 2011. This compares to the 17,000 appeals completed under the remit of the Fianna Fáil Minister in 2010, and the 10,911 decisions made in 2009.

We are dealing with a vastly expanded load because of Fianna Fáil's destruction of the economy and we are actually dealing with them faster and more comprehensively. More emphasis is placed on deciding claims on a summary basis where possible, and enhanced business processes and ICT have also increased the capacity of the office. Some 3,000 cases registered before 31 December 2010 have been ring-fenced, with a team of ten of the office's most experienced appeals officers having been freed from all other work to concentrate on clearing the Fianna Fáil backlog by the end of this year. I hope the Deputy understands who has caused the build-up of appeals, although we are sorting it out. The Deputy's party caused it.

Overall it is expected that the increase in the number of decisions being made by appeals officers will continue and this, combined with the slight reduction in the numbers received, should lead to ongoing reductions in the backlog of appeals and processing times.

Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for the response but we should get a few facts straight and sing from the same hymn sheet. I have been elected to this Dáil, not the previous Dáil. I carry no candle for the previous Administration, although that is no reflection on the various and many improvements which have accrued to this State from its time in office. It is high time the Minister and her colleagues began to take cognisance of the fact that they head the current Administration, having been elected to this Dáil. They should take responsibility for the current position.

The people of Laois-Offaly elected me to represent them and I will continue to do so. My party has also asked me to take responsibility for the social protection portfolio, and I take soundings from my colleagues. I have some examples of our current position. I will not talk about what was the case, what brought about our current position or anything like that, as I was elected to this Dáil.

An applicant for the domiciliary care allowance in respect of her son in September 2010 had it refused in October 2010. The decision was appealed and to date no decision has been made on her claim. Having phoned the social welfare appeals office on numerous occasions we have been advised that the case is with the chief appeals officer for decision, with an instruction to call back in a few days. There has been no decision. An applicant for a domiciliary care allowance in respect of her son in June 2010 was refused in August 2010 and the decision was appealed on medical grounds; a decision was only reached two weeks ago and I am thankful the allowance was awarded.

An application for disability allowance was refused and the decision was appealed on medical grounds in 2010, with a listing for an oral hearing on 27 November. That applicant is still waiting to be called for an oral hearing. Only this week a 92-year-old woman being cared for by her son had care withdrawn, and the parties sought for the decision to be reviewed within the three-week period. There was advice from staff that this would be pointless, and that it should be appealed, with an 18-month wait.

These are just some examples and the Minister's colleagues and party can give similar cases. There are lists of questions on the Order Paper every day dealing with similar cases throughout the country. Irrespective of where we came from, the Minister has the current responsibility in this regard, so she has the responsibility to act appropriately.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Deputy may not have been listening to the figures but there has been a reduction in the backlog left by Fianna Fáil. Perhaps there is a Fianna Fáil nua and we did not hear the announcement that Fianna Fáil went out of business completely. The Deputy is a member of the Fianna Fáil party and it has, unfortunately, bequeathed this massive backlog of appeals. We have begun to reduce that.

I am sure the Deputy will be pleased to hear that on Friday I signed the regulations which bring community welfare officers and the social welfare appeal system fully into the Department of Social Protection. We will now have an additional ten former HSE appeals officers integrated into the social welfare appeals office on foot of the changes. It will take time to deal with the backlog and, as I mentioned to the Deputy before, in the case of applications based on medical decision making, it is important that people have as complete an application as is possible at the original stage. We have discussed before how many people could help their position if there was more complete evidence at the time of the application.

We have also put more emphasis on deciding claims on a summary basis where possible, particularly if the medical evidence is clear and strong enough. That has brought down numbers but because of the massive unemployment which the Fianna Fáil Party bequeathed to the country, this is the unfortunate consequence of what Fianna Fáil did to the economy. It melted it and employment down and left us saddled with the bank guarantee. I take absolute responsibility to clear up the mess, and I am doing so while reforming the system. I assure the Deputy on the matter.