Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise two specific issues. Both relate to the portfolio and responsibility of the Minister, Deputy Leo Varadkar, in the Department of Social Protection. The first issue relates to the carer's allowance payment and the second relates to the maternity benefit. We know that the carer's allowance is a payment to people on low incomes who are looking after persons who need care due to age, support, disability or illness, including mental illness. On 27 April, I contacted the Department with regard to a number of people who had contacted my office about serious issues of appeals over the carer's allowance.Our contacts were not followed up. After we made contact again on a number of occasions, we were informed by a very senior public servant that there was a huge backlog. We were told in April, as we were heading into May, the Department was dealing with the backlog from December. Carer's allowance payments are not being processed in cases where there are appeals, concerns, refusals or questions to be investigated or pursued. The Department is not in a position to look at anything beyond December 2016. That is nothing short of an absolute disgrace and needs to be addressed. It was reported on RTE this morning, during a discussion on "Morning Ireland" of the media coverage of the maternity benefit issue, that there is now a backlog of 3,000 claims for maternity benefit. It seems again that it will take months to clear the backlog. I have double-checked these facts today. The position with regard to these two key social protection benefits is totally unacceptable. I ask the Leader to arrange for the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, to come to this House to explain the background to all this and what he is going to do about it. Will additional resources, including staff, be put in place to address the genuine concerns of people who have made appeals to get their carer's allowance payments, which are critical if those for whom they care are to be able to stay in their homes and communities with dignity and with the appropriate and necessary care they need? As a result of the difficulties with maternity benefit, people will be cut off and will have no income. People need to be given assurances that they will get these benefits. This is a process that has been set up within the Department. It is clear that the Department has neither the staff nor the resources to check all this out and pursue it. It needs to be addressed. I am asking the Leader respectfully to invite the Leader to come to this House to brief us on these two specific issues and to set out how he intends to address these appeals processes immediately.