Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I second the recommendation. We all have experience, as I am sure the Minister of State and other Members of the House do, of people getting in touch with us who experience extraordinarily long delays in getting an initial decision on their application and then an appeal. The motion proposes 60 days or two months which should be long enough. It is extraordinarily unfair when people end up waiting between six and eight months for a decision. I have cases of this happening where people sought the carer's allowance, disability allowance and invalidity pension. These people are really sick but they have had to wait this length of time to hear the result of an appeal.

There is a sense in some respects that in pushing out the timeframe, the Government hopes for attrition. People have often said to me that the Government must hope 10% will drop out of the process due to getting fed up with the requests for extra information. People get exhausted by delays, particularly when ill and in receipt of an illness payment or where they have a serious disability. If a person gets a favourable decision at the end of an appeal, he or she must be paid anyway so there is a cost to the State. The recommendation is about timing and ensuring people receive a decent and efficient service, to which they are entitled, and are not made to wait for excessive periods for decisions to be made. The proposed timeframe is extremely reasonable. Two months is not a difficult target to meet. As Senator Mooney has pointed out, the recommendation contains the provision that when there are genuinely exceptional circumstances, the timeframe may be longer, but at least reasons must be given for doing so.