Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 112: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason for the substantial waiting time for decisions on the payment of disability allowance, state contributory pension, family income supplement, one parent family and invalidity pension by his Department; if he will reduce this waiting time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5029/08]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 114: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason for the substantial waiting time for decisions on the payment of carer's allowance by his Department; if he will reduce this waiting time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5030/08]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 139: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the reason for the long delay in processing claims for family income supplement; the target time set down for his Department in relation to processing claims; and the action he is taking to address the significant backlog. [5231/08]

Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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Question 143: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the way he will improve his Department's performance in relation to customer service targets particularly in relation to processing times for claims. [5245/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 112, 114, 139 and 143 together.

The Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. The staff and other resources available to the Department are regularly reviewed having regard to the workload arising and other competing demands. The available resources are then used to discharge the Department's obligations towards its customers and in implementing cost effective controls to prevent and detect fraud and abuse. The Department's management services unit monitors available resources against workload on an ongoing basis with a view to ensuring optimum processing times for claims.

The processing of applications under any of the schemes operated by my Department can require the collection and assessment of a complex range of information in relation to a variety of factors including means, medical condition, domestic and EU contributions and other criteria. This can involve medical assessments of applicants, the verification of information provided through visits by social welfare inspectorate and correspondence and evidence from other EU jurisdictions, all of which add to the processing time required to ensure that the terms of the scheme are correctly administered. In addition the timescales in processing applications for some of the Department's schemes have been influenced by increases in the numbers of claims being submitted.

With regard to the schemes concerned the following is the current position. The number of claims for disability allowance received in 2007 was 20,000 as compared with 17,600 in 2006. The average time to decide a claim in 2007 was 18 weeks. A review of existing processes and procedures for disability allowance claims is currently ongoing with the explicit objective of reducing delays in claim processing. The Department received 18,000 new applications for carers allowance in 2007 compared to 10,700 in 2006. The average time to decide a claim in 2007 was 12 weeks. The large increase in applications received is mainly due to the introduction of the half rate carers allowance payment, which was announced in the December 2006 budget and came into effect from 27th September 2007. A review of existing processes and procedures has been completed by the Department for carers allowance with the explicit objective of reducing delays in claim processing, and improvements are currently being implemented.

The Department received 38,000 new and renewal FIS claims in 2007 compared to 33,000 in 2006. The Department's target for awarding FIS claims is that 70% will be completed in 3 weeks. The average time to award a FIS claim is currently some 12 weeks. A review of existing processes and procedures has been completed by the Department for FIS with the objective of reducing delays in claim processing and improvements are being implemented. There has also been an upward trend in the number of recipients of invalidity pension. The Department received 6,500 new applications in 2006 and 7,000 in 2007. The average time to decide an invalidity pension claim in 2007 was 8 weeks. The Department currently processes new applications for one parent family payment (OFP) at 42 Social Welfare local offices. The average processing time for such claims in 2007 was about 9 weeks.

In 2007, a total of 13,600 new claims for state pension (transition) was received and 12,700 claims were processed. State pension (transition) is payable for a maximum of 1 year between the age of 65 to 66. A total of 26,000 claims for state pension (contributory) were received in 2007, of which 25,000 were processed during the year. While there were delays during 2007, the backlogs have now been cleared and claims are now being processed in a timely manner.