Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I wish to bring to the Minister of State's attention something that is deeply concerning for families in County Limerick and throughout the State, namely, the persistent and unacceptable wait times for domiciliary care appeals. I am acutely aware of a case involving a family in County Limerick who are in their 37th week of waiting to hear about the progress of their appeal. This delay is not just a bureaucratic failure but a human crisis for this family. I will give the Minister of State their story. This is a family with four children, one of whom is a 12-year-old girl with autism. She faces daily challenges no child should face alone. Her parents describe her as a sweet child, but one who struggles significantly throughout her day with sensory issues, social anxiety, dietary needs, communication and emotional regulation. She attends school but she cannot participate in most activities, school outings or sport. Birthday parties, team games and even basic social interactions are simply too overwhelming. She experiences what is known as autistic burnout and dysregulation, often daily. He mother explains how they manage this with incredible patience and care using scaffolding techniques, strict routine and structure to help her recover her sense of safety and calm. She still requires assistance with all aspects of personal care, including showering, washing her hair and dressing. She cannot tie her shoelaces or ride a bike.

Despite doing everything in their power to support their daughter, her parents have been refused domiciliary care allowance. They appealed that decision and the appeals officer received their document on 20 August 2024, but 37 weeks later there has been nothing. There has been no update from mygov.ie and no appeals officer assigned. When they rang for information they were told the appeal was simply still in the queue. In week 37, the family remain in limbo with no timeline, clarity or support. The mother said something that stayed with me. She said “We feel our autistic child is just completely invisible”. That is what this backlog is doing; it is making children with complex needs feel invisible.

During a recent training session, we were told by the Department of Social Protection that the disability and illness section is the fastest growing area of the Department’s budget, yet the appeals office still operates with delays dating back to the post-Covid period. This is simply not good enough. Families like this are not statistics but human beings under enormous emotional and financial pressure being forced to wait in silence while their children continue to suffer.

What is being done? Are there plans to recruit or second staff to the appeals office? Are there plans to expand the staffing and resources in this fast-growing sector? Without urgent intervention, more and more families are going to fall through the cracks. We cannot allow our system to punish people for needing help, and certainly not when it is for children.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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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.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The Senator can share the details with me, but I encourage her to share them with Minister, Dara Calleary. I will convey to the Minister the thoughts, views and, more importantly, the sentiments of what the Senator has put forward in her argument. I know that if the Minister can do anything on an individual basis for that family, he will try to ensure that their case is expedited as quickly as possible.

We have a big opportunity within the public service to create efficiencies. I have no doubt that all of the officials who deal with these applications are buried in paperwork. If digitalisation and AI can remove the drudgery of that work, it would allow officials to adopt a human-centred approach to these applications when they consider them. It would allow them to take stock of what a family is suffering and give the family the adequate support they need in a timely fashion, meaning we all win.