Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, as Senators know, I brought up the issue of public service pay and stated how out of touch the Government is with how ordinary people are feeling. I wish to raise today another issue of which the Government seems blissfully unaware, namely, the time one must wait for State benefits. The average waiting time for the carer's allowance is 40 weeks, as we know from an answer to a parliamentary question. The overall waiting times for some other benefits are 27 weeks for a State pension and 21 weeks, on average, for an invalidity pension. I encountered an example of someone in Limerick who was waiting seven months to be awarded the carer's allowance. This person had to give up work to care for a sick relative who is terminally ill. The individual was at a huge financial loss as a result of the delay. Does the Leader have any idea of the hurt and hardship this is causing?

Who is in charge of this? It is none other than the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Leo Varadkar, hailed by many as the future leader of Fine Gael. He cannot run a tap, never mind a Government Department. He left the Department of Health having made a hames of it, and now he is causing chaos in the Department of Social Protection, yet Fine Gael wants him as its future leader. There are only two possibilities here: one being that Fine Gael does not know what is going on with regard to waiting times and the other being that it does not care.