Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister of State. I am excited to hear about the AI. We all go through our lives with everything happening in an instant. It would be fantastic to see quicker ways of processing these appeals, but this will not help this family today. I will get on to the Minister directly because 37 weeks is too long for the family to wait and to feel invisible. When my office contacts the Minister, we receive a generic reply that a case is in an appeals process and it should take however many weeks, be it 20.9 weeks or 19.9 weeks, but in this case it is 37 weeks and counting. By the time AI catches up, this family will be at the end of their rope, as it were. I am sure the Minister of State knows from various cases that the cost to these families is unbelievable and impossible to measure. They have to go for private appointments and take children out of school.This child cannot go on school tours, so she has to be taken out of school for the school tour, which is disappointing for the child and her family. They must take her on a special tour of their own to make up for the day this girl is not getting with her peers.

I thank the Minister of State for her reply but I will contact the office as well.