Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senator very much. As she is well aware, I am not the Minister for Social Protection, but I am the Minister of State with responsibility for AI and digitalisation. I tell her wholeheartedly that if I achieve anything over the next five years, it will be to bring efficiencies into our public services and public bodies so parents and families are not left forgotten or "invisible", as was said. We must bring in the technology to enable staff to get through the backlogs we hear so much about.In the script, which, as Senator Collins knows, was prepared by officials in the Department, I am told the wait is 20 weeks, but Senator Collins has given an exact personal account of a family that has been waiting 37 weeks. It is not acceptable and we have to do whatever we can to support public bodies and public agencies to bring in technology.

I believe there is a much faster and more efficient way, which would not take away the human-centred approach but would cut through the analysis of an application, which can be very repetitive. I would like to see us have the ability to take the drudgery out of the work for our officials and be able to get to the bottom line and the answer for families. Not having a response or not being told an officer has been appointed to a case should be relatively easy to deal with, to give parents and families a response, a pathway and a timeline. This is a very fair expectation to have. As Minister of State I will support the Department of the Minister, Deputy Calleary, and other Departments in introducing measures in order that we can get the efficiencies Senator Collins has quite rightly raised and, more importantly, which families deserve. I ask Senator Collins to bear with me as I give her the official answer.

The social welfare appeals office is an office in the Department of Social Protection responsible for determining appeals against decisions on social welfare entitlements. Appeals officers are independent in their decision-making functions. At the end of March 2025, the overall average processing time for all appeals was 20.9 weeks and the average processing time for a domiciliary care allowance appeal was 19.6 weeks. This is half of the actual life experience of the family Senator Collins spoke about. I am aware of the domiciliary care allowance, the relief it can bring families, the importance of the support and the reassurance of having it in the future. There is much involved in the particular case Senator Collins described and great support is required by the parents of the little girl to do the normal everyday things in life. They should have this peace of mind. I always say that if politicians do not receive a good answer, they should still go back and tell people as this also causes frustration.

The time given to process an appeal is for all aspects of the appeals process, including initial validation of the appeal to ensure adequate grounds have been provided, following referral of the appeal to the relevant scheme in the Department for review. Senator Collins has pointed out that the family has not even had this initial contact. Where, in the first instance, a decision is not made in favour of the applicant, an appeal is considered by an appeals officer, which may require holding an oral hearing. A significant proportion of cases are revised by the Department in favour of the applicant during the review process. This does not always mean the initial decision was incorrect. A decision can be revised because the person making the application or the appeal provided additional information not made available when the decision was first made. This is the benefit of the oral hearings when families go before an appeals officer to speak about their day-to-day life experiences. Those filling in application forms are so busy with the day-to-day running of their homes and taking care of their loved ones that they do not have the time for it. For many applications there is a formula which ordinary people do not know and are not familiar with as they do not complete them every day. This does not make it very helpful. Where new information, in particular medical information, is provided on appeal, it may require further investigation which can add to the time taken in the appeals process.