Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 431: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the average time a person has to wait before their application for jobseeker's allowance or benefit is dealt with; if in view of the significant period of time that people have to wait to receive their due benefits, she will take steps to have additional staff provided in her Department to deal with same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42719/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Department is committed to providing a quality customer service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are issued as expeditiously as possible having regard to the eligibility conditions which apply. These conditions vary between the two jobseeker schemes and involve, among other things, the need to establish the person's social insurance record, establish the person's identity or their place of habitual residence and to assess means where appropriate. In some cases delays arise where the person fails to supply all pertinent information in support of his/her application.

For claims processed in October 2008 the average processing time was 3 weeks for Jobseekers Benefit and 5 weeks for Jobseekers Allowance. Because of the increased number of claims for jobseeker payments the Department undertook a review of staffing levels in Local Offices in May and June of this year. This resulted in the assignment of an additional 31 staff to some 15 Local Offices. Following on the most recent review of the staffing levels in Local Offices, an additional 115 staff are to be assigned to some 48 offices.