David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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1. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of cases currently being considered by the social welfare appeals office, in tabular form; the longest waiting times under each scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25415/24]

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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This question is on the social welfare appeals office. The staff in the Department of Social Protection do a fantastic job. I have read reports where the Ombudsman commends the staff, the appeals officers, the deciding officers, the work they do and the way they deal with the public. I want the Minister to report that back to the staff of the Department. They are very professional and very helpful to Members all the time. I am interested in the number of cases currently being considered by the social welfare appeals office and how long some of these cases are taking to resolve.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and for his kind comments about the staff of the Department.

The social welfare appeals office is an office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions relating to social welfare entitlements. Appeals officers are independent in their decision-making functions. Significant efforts and resources have been devoted to reforming and streamlining the appeal process in recent years. A modernisation project is currently in progress to develop and implement a new appeals business process and IT system. The next phase of the system, which will be implemented in quarter 3 of 2024, will provide functionality on the MyWelfare platform for making appeals. This will provide a secure and comprehensive online appeals service for customers. It will improve the customer experience by offering an additional online channel that will facilitate 24-7 access to view current appeal status. It will also reduce the administrative overhead of validating and registering appeals.

The time taken to process appeals reflects the need to consider each decision in detail and, in many cases, to offer the appellant the opportunity to provide further information in addition to that submitted with their appeal. The chief appeals officer continues to monitor processing times and every effort is made to reduce the time taken to process an appeal. However, the drive for efficiency must be balanced with the competing demand to ensure decisions are consistent and of high quality and made in accordance with the provisions set out in primary legislation and regulations. Draft new regulations setting out the processes to be followed by the appeals office, including specific timelines for receipt and processing of appeals, have been prepared and discussed at the Oireachtas committee and issued for public consultation. These regulations are now being finalised and when implemented should enable a more efficient and transparent appeals office.

As of 31 May 2024 there was a total of 12,489 appeals registered and under consideration. Of these, a total of 5,174 are with the appeals office to be finalised with the remaining appeals under consideration by the relevant scheme area in the Department before submitting the file papers to the appeals office. The average processing time for an appeal was 16 weeks.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for her response and commend her on the work she is doing in this area, especially updating the IT systems, which should make for a huge improvement there. I ask the Minister to give us a bit more of a breakdown of which schemes or areas are causing the most difficulty with respect to appeals. Is there anything standing out there with respect to the number of appeals being lodged for a particular scheme, for instance? What is the longest waiting time in the various schemes she has in front of her? Will she make those figures available to us in tabular form at a later stage? I am aware she cannot give them all to us now, but they would make interesting reading, especially the longest waiting times. Has she looked at the need for extra staff and resources in the appeals office?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I have a table that sets out all the data and the appeals processing times in weeks by scheme for January to December of 2023. The one that seems to have the most appeals is illness benefit, with a processing time of 40.9 weeks. I will get this sent to the Deputy, because I have only just received it. I am not too sure how many weeks it took, but they were finalised eventually. I will get that detail to him.

For an appeal decided without an oral hearing, the average processing time was 17.6 weeks and for those with an oral hearing it was 29.2 weeks. We are trying to improve the system. It has been upgraded and the modernisation project is under way so we are trying to improve the times.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I commend the Minister on her efforts to improve the time. A period of 29.2 weeks is quite a long time to be waiting for a decision, and especially if the person does not have any income over that period. Obviously when income has been reduced quite considerably, there is a stress that goes with that. Does the Minister have targets in respect of these times of 29.2 weeks and 17.6 weeks? Is there a target to reduce them further by, perhaps, halving them in time with new systems coming in place, more resources and so on? Bearing in mind that every social welfare appeal goes to the appeals office, are we making enough use of the review process? Do people go directly to the appeals office rather than having their cases reviewed, which obviously takes a shorter time? This would really reduce the number of cases that are going to appeals.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. They can ask for a review and if the review fails it then goes to an appeal. Often the issue gets resolved at review stage because maybe further information has been provided and then it goes through. We are changing the system. It has been modernised to improve the efficiencies and to decide quicker. I understand how important it is that people get an answer quickly because it can be worrying for them when they are waiting for the decisions to come through. I take on board the points raised by Deputy Stanton.