Derek Keating (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle and his office for selecting this item, a matter which is affecting many thousands of people and many of my constituents in the Lucan and greater Clondalkin areas. Today, my attention was drawn to a powerful speech by our President in America. He referred to the anger felt in Ireland at the betrayal of trust by individuals and institutions that characterised the Celtic tiger economy. One may ask what this has to do with delays in social welfare payments, but I believe it has a great deal to do with them.

I understand the legislation that governs social welfare claims is section 241 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 and that this is being reviewed and debated in the House at present. I welcome the Minister's plan for an integrated service for jobseekers which seeks the merger of community welfare officers from the HSE, the employment services of FÁS and the jobseekers section of the Department of Social Protection. I am also aware the Minister has inherited more than 1,000 community welfare officers in the Department of Social Protection this year.

The reality is that if the Minister or I were so unfortunate as to become ill and we did not have the means, our applications would take up to 17 weeks to process. It takes up to three months or more in the majority of cases and if an appeal is involved, it could take up to 40 weeks. Since there is a shortage of staff in the investigation division, some appeals have gone beyond 60 weeks in cases involving an oral hearing, to which every person is entitled.

I wish to bring another major issue to the attention of the House. Let us consider applications for the various entitlements, including carer's allowance, disability allowance, family income supplement, invalidity pension, etc. A major and significant factor in the processing of these applications is the location of the applicant and the office. For example, I understand applications being dealt with in Tallaght and Clondalkin are from local offices as far away as Clondalkin and Galway. This is causing considerable delays in the local offices. In addition, there are no local offices in some regions. This is the case in such areas as Lucan, Saggart, Newcastle and Rathcoole in my constituency.

I refer to the matter of casual work. Let us suppose a person is on social welfare payments or has a pending welfare payment and that person has an opportunity of casual work, short-term work, weekend work or several hours of work per week. This complicates the system. Many people have been advised not to take up certain opportunities to work because it would complicate the process and may impinge on one's social welfare allowance or one's pending supplementary welfare allowance. Such a person may lose that allowance. Something must be done to address these circumstances. Since people are refusing a small amount of work and there are delays in welfare applications, they are visiting the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in an effort to find food and to have food paid for to survive. This is the reality for many today. I realise the Government has inherited the situation and we should not lose sight of that fact. This makes the challenge all the greater.

There is a three month waiting time for the family income supplement for the working poor as well. There are more than 8,500 applicants awaiting an answer. Organisations such as MABS have been inundated with 7,500 new cases. Of the 29 free legal aid centres, a total of 22 are unable to meet the current client lists. Charities are being inundated with requests for help. I thank the Acting Chairman for his indulgence.

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I am responding on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton.

The Department is committed to ensuring claims are processed as expeditiously as possible. Schemes that require a high level of documentary evidence from the customer, especially in the case of illness related schemes, can take longer to process. Similarly, means-tested payments may also require more detailed investigation and interaction with the applicant, thereby lengthening the decision process. As part of the Department's programme of service delivery modernisation, a range of initiatives aimed at streamlining the processing of claims, supported by modern technology, have been implemented in recent years. For example, all State pension contributory and non-contributory claims are now processed, decided and maintained on the new processing system. New claims for carer's and disability allowance are also decided on the new processing system, with existing claims due to transfer to the new system in quarters two and four of this year, respectively. Operational processes, procedures and the organisation of work are continually reviewed to ensure processing capability is maximised.

The staffing needs of the Department are regularly reviewed, having regard to workloads and the competing demands arising to ensure the best use is made of all available resources. The Department will continue to source available staff to fill critical vacancies by way of redeployment or transfer from within the Department and other Departments, taking account of the employment control framework target as determined by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Since May 2008, some 990 staff have been assigned to the Department to fill critical vacancies and additional posts allocated to deal with the increased volume of claims. Taking into account the numbers of staff who have left the Department and the numbers of vacancies, a net total of 226 additional staff has been assigned to the Department. The Department also makes judicious use of overtime and employs temporary staff as appropriate to address particular service issues as they arise.

Regarding the Social Welfare Appeals Office, I am advised that based on figures for the first quarter of this year the average waiting time for appeals dealt with by summary decisions was 22.4 weeks, and 40.9 weeks for those that required an oral hearing. The comparable times for last year were 25 weeks and 52.5 weeks, respectively. These processing times are calculated from the registration date of the appeal to the date of its finalisation. They include all activities during this period including time spent in the Department for comments by the deciding officer on the grounds of appeal put forward by the appellant and any further investigation, examination or assessment by the Department's inspectors and medical assessors that is deemed necessary. A considerable period of time is added to the process when an oral hearing is required because of the logistics involved in this process. The considered processing of appeals must take an appropriate amount of time and cannot be unduly rushed due to the quasi-judicial nature of the work.

In an effort to reduce the processing times, the Department appointed 12 additional appeals officers between 2010 and 2011. In addition, a further ten appeals officers formerly employed by the Community Welfare Service, CWS, of the Health Service Executive joined the office as part of the integration of the CWS appeals services into the Social Welfare Appeals Office. This brought the total number of appeals officers to 39. In addition to that, the office has improved its business processes and IT support.

I am assured by the chief appeals officer that she is keeping the methods of operation by which the Social Welfare Appeals Office conducts its business under constant review and that the processes are continually being enhanced to reduce the backlogs in the office and, overall, to reduce the processing times for dealing with appeals. The Minister is satisfied that progress is being made. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter.

Derek Keating (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State and the Minister because this is a helpful report. I welcome some aspects of the report. Clearly, the flexibility shown by staff in dealing with some of the issues that arise requiring immediate responses is helpful. The introduction of more modern technology leads to greater efficiency. In particular, I welcome the reduction in the average waiting time although I am sure the Minister of State would agree that other cases will arise that will take much longer.

The Minister may not be in a position to answer this question but notwithstanding the crisis this issue continues to present for quite a number of families, will she take back to the Minister my request that a working group be set up to examine the position? For many people this is a crisis situation in the Department and a working group to monitor it and try to resolve something that is causing hardship for many families might be a short-term solution but might also bring about a quicker resolution to the problem.

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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I acknowledge the points made by the Deputy. There is definitely an issue regarding casual work and a need for greater flexibility to allow people take up whatever work is offered to them. Equally, the high number of medical appeals that are upheld would indicate there are difficulties at the deciding stage regarding claims that entail medical evidence. That is an issue that must be addressed.

On the Deputy's proposal for a working group, I am happy to take that back to the Minister for Social Protection.