Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I did a quick count of this extraordinarily long Government amendment to the motion.

In all my time in this House, I do not believe I have seen a longer amendment. It comes to almost 900 words. With all due respect to the Minister, who is very busy, she might as well have sent it on its own. I will be interested to hear what she has to add to what is contained in this comprehensive amendment. I do not say it is correct but in its response to the motion tabled by our colleagues it is comprehensive. I will be genuinely interested to hear what further information the Minister will add to this piece of propaganda. I refer to the last line, which might give an indication of where I stand. It welcomes the Government commitment to reducing processing times for appeals, as outlined, and to taking any further measures that may be adopted to ensure that appeals are dealt with as swiftly and fairly as possible. That line is the let-out for the Minister. We look forward to hearing what the extra measures are.

I know the Minister is groaning under the weight of what is probably the most difficult Department, dealing as it does with economic issues. We are all aware of that and I do not wish in any way to diminish the attempts she is making to try to streamline what has always been an exceptionally complex Department. I will always remember a comment made by some colleagues in RTE many years ago, when Michael Woods was the so-called Minister for life in the Department of Social Welfare. He had become so knowledgeable that, according to one of the reporters, whenever he appeared on television - on "Questions and Answers", "Prime Time", or whatever programme - to talk about social welfare issues people's eyes would glaze over, simply because of the complexities involved in trying to explain the various nuances around decisions taken. Essentially, that is the nub of this issue.

As the Minister is aware, my colleague in the other House, Deputy Willie O'Dea, has been giving her a relatively hard time about these delays, not that she is not capable of responding to this. The Minister confirmed to the Deputy in the reply to a parliamentary question that there are now delays of up to 12 months in the processing of appeals for key social welfare supports. The longest delays are in appeals for the disability allowance. In addition, there are more than 1,600 people waiting to have their appeals for carer's allowance processed. These are the most vulnerable people under the remit of the Minister's Department. If one wished to make a hierarchy of vulnerability they would come very high on the list. The record number of rejected applications for certain social welfare supports and the seemingly endless delays in processing appeals have also been raised repeatedly with the Minister. There seems to be a suggestion that these delays may be linked to a drive to try to cut costs and cover a budget deficit, although I am sure the Minister will reject that out of hand.

We live in conspiratorial times, but I am not sure the cock-up theory works in this case. There must be some reason for the lack of any improvement, in spite of the figures contained here. For example, in 2011, almost one in five decisions were overturned when the original deciding officer simply revised his or her decision. This information comes from FLAC, which has published a report in this regard, about which the Minister is well aware. FLAC argues that this very high success rate for appeals shows that many decisions to refuse a payment were wrong in the first place, or at least that is the implication. In addition, the higher volume of cases, as referred to in this debate, and the need to reduce costs have led the appeals office to rely more heavily on summary decision-making, based solely on written submissions. Again, this point was raised by the proposers of the motion. For example, 65% of the cases the office dealt with last year had been summarily dismissed, compared to 41% in 2009. However, appellants have a higher success rate when an oral hearing is held because that allows them to make a fuller presentation of all their circumstances, with representation where possible. That is something the Minister might address. I ask her to give her views on the fact that the appeals office is making summary decisions rather than making provision for oral hearings.

It is interesting that Senator Healy Eames mentioned the difference in percentages some years ago versus those of this year. She described the result as progress. Considering there is still such a long delay for appeals, it seems-----