Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I wish to clarify for the record of the House that when I was referring to the case of the two calls that it was a colleague here in the Oireachtas who referred that story to me. For correction, it was not a member of the Department's staff, unless they are doing constituency work in Donegal. My more general point is whether it would be acceptable for a social welfare inspector to refuse on the basis that nobody was in the house when he or she called and therefore proof of address could not be verified. If that is allowable within the rules and regulations, we need to ensure it is applied in a fair way. I am positive people are giving false addresses to scam the system. We must have balance. My question about appeals directly relates to this amendment and the report to the Oireachtas. We know there has been a spike in appeals and we know there has been a spike in the live register, which accounts for it. Has there been analysis by the Department to take account of the rise in the live register and the number of payments made versus the number of appeals? What proportion of appeals is being made compared with last time? Are we seeing a proportionate increase in appeals or is it at the same level? Is the percentage of appeals for applications processed three years ago neither higher nor lower than the current percentage? This is a worry.