Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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40. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she is satisfied that the application process and current waiting times for payments such as domiciliary care allowance, carer's allowance and disability allowance are acceptable and accessible; the steps being taken to reduce waiting times for these payments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26571/18]

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Is the Minister satisfied that the application process and the current waiting times for payments such as domiciliary care allowance, carer's allowance and disability allowance are acceptable and accessible? What steps are being taken to reduce waiting times for these payments?

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Department is committed to making decisions on entitlements as quickly as possible. In general, applications under social welfare schemes with a number of complex qualifying conditions, including those mentioned by the Deputy, take longer to process. Before a decision can be made on entitlement to domiciliary care allowance, evidence of the additional care needs of the child must be provided and examined. Similarly, before a decision can be made on entitlement to carer's allowance, evidence of the care recipient's care requirement, the level of care the carer provides and the carer's means must be provided. In respect of disability allowance, evidence of the person’s medical condition, the extent to which it restricts him or her from taking up employment, his or her means and habitual residency must be provided. The target in processing applications for domiciliary care allowance is to finalise 90% of new claims within ten weeks. This is being achieved. The target in processing applications for carer's allowance is to finalise 70% of new claims within 12 weeks. Currently, the average waiting time in processing new carer's allowance applications is 15 weeks. Obviously, the target is not being achieved. The target in processing applications for disability allowance is to process 75% of new claims within 12 weeks. Currently, the waiting time in processing new disability allowance applications is 13 weeks.

My Department recognises that the current processing times for carer's allowance and disability allowance must be improved and is working to achieve this. Staff resources have recently been reassigned to work in claims processing. A redesigned application form will be available shortly to try to simplify the application process. The new form will allow carers to provide more information on the type and level of care they provide. The aim is to provide deciding officers with the information they need to expedite decisions on entitlement. The implementation of a new information technology system to process illness benefit claims, as part of the ongoing modernisation programme in my Department, will support the deployment of additional staff to support the processing of carer's allowance applications. It is hoped this will help to reduce the average waiting time below the current level of 13 weeks. The processes in place and resources assigned to these areas of my Department, with the number of medical assessors available to provide medical opinions, are kept under constant review to ensure delays are minimised.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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We are blessed with our carers. They provide 24-hour care for some of our most vulnerable citizens. They do so for a fraction of what it would cost the State to provide the same level of care. I understand it was recently estimated that it would cost approximately €4 billion a year, which is a lot of money. Carers keep tens of thousands of people out of State care and free up crucial beds for those with more urgent or life-threatening health care needs. I shudder to think what chaos the healthcare system would face if carers were not keeping thousands of beds available. We must do more for carers. The current waiting time for an application to be processed is between 16 and 18 weeks, which is nothing short of an insult. I spoke today to a number of staff members who had been following up on carer's allowance applications since 2012. They told me that the average waiting time back then was 16 weeks, which means that we are seeing no long-term improvement. This contradicts what the Minister said. The process is cumbersome and tedious. We force carers to jump through hoops and endure red tape in order to receive payments such as domiciliary care allowance and disability allowance. This is consistent across the board. Will the Minister give me a commitment that she will do everything in her power to reduce application processing times and streamline the application process for those seeking these crucial payments?

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I agree with the Deputy. I acknowledge the value of the work of carers and their commitment to the people for whom they care. The Deputy and I are well aware that this country could not afford to pay carers if it wanted to do so. There is a huge debt of gratitude owed in everything we do. To be fair to the Government and its predecessor, we have taken some small measures to try to show our gratitude. Most recently, we introduced medical cards for persons in receipt of carer's allowance and reinstated the respite care grant. We can do such small things to show our gratitude. As the Deputy suggested, the payment carers receive on a weekly basis is the real sign of our gratitude. The statistics I have are accurate. They were compiled in the past couple of days. Thankfully, they have changed. We are still a week behind, but that is only in 75% of cases. There may be 16 or 17-week cases coming to the Deputy's office. A number of years ago we had a very serious issue with applications for domiciliary care allowance. That gave rise to the establishment of a wonderful organisation, DCA Warriors, which most of us know and work with. We reformed the application process by streamlining it and making it much easier for applicants and the Department. The application process is now working well. We are in the process of doing the same in the case of carer's allowance. The application form has been changed and we are making online applications more available.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Other Members want to ask questions. The clock is ticking.

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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All of this is speeding up the application process.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I speak to many applicants for carer's allowance, domiciliary care allowance, disability allowance and other payments. They believe the State is fighting them every step of the way. That is what I am hearing from them. Of course, I understand the application process has to be stringent and diligent, but I believe we have gone way over the top with red tape. I will give an example from my constituency. In December 2017 a woman was awarded full-rate carer's allowance in respect of her son. She then discovered that she would have an additional entitlement to a half-rate carer's allowance in respect of her daughter who had just been approved for receipt of domiciliary care allowance.

5 o’clock

She was getting one and then she was applying for the half one. The Department had assessed her means for the first one in respect of her son and it had the medical for her daughter's domiciliary care allowance yet the application for an additional half rate carers allowance was treated as a new applicant. That is a waste of time and space. It is so simple. These are just a few examples. I could give several. She was already assessed for her son and then her daughter's case came along she had to go through the whole lot again.

I also want to raise the issue of undocumented carers. Applicants who are just over the means or just outside the medical requirements and miss out on a payment, GP visit card and carer support grant are still having to leave work anyway to care for a loved one with a severe illness. Can the Minister look at this?

Has the Minister any plans to increase the carers allowance, domiciliary care allowance or disability allowance payment in the coming budget? That has been asked but I will throw it in anyway.

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy would have to ask.

The carers allowance and all of our schemes are statutory schemes. I appreciate that it does not seem to make sense to the lady who has already applied successfully for the full carers allowance for her son. When she makes an application for her daughter, despite the fact that it is only half a carers allowance it is still a new application and under the law it has to be deemed to be adjudicated in exactly the same way as if the Deputy or I or somebody we knew applied for the first time. Each application has to be taken on its own merit. That is just the way the law is.

Budget negotiations for this year have not started so I cannot answer the Deputy's second question. Obviously, it will be defined and determined by the amount of fiscal space available from the Department of Finance. The only thing I can say to the Deputy is that there are 6,000 people working in my Department. They are there to serve the people who need help at certain periods of their life. They do not take 20 weeks to go through an application just because they want to annoy somebody. We have times and targets available based on either the volume of applications we get or the length of time needed to do the work. For these three particular payments, most have to go through a medical assessor or there is a requirement to really genuinely assess the care that is being given to a person. It takes times. Some cases are taking longer. Sometimes a reason for that is that we do not get the information in the first instance. We want to make sure that we streamline it and make it as easy as we possibly can so that we reduce the numbers of weeks.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I remind the Minister that there are many Members waiting. A minute is a minute.