Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 344: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of people on the live register in the area of Cork city and county; the increase in these figures over the past 12 months; the increase in the number of staff employed in social welfare offices to deal with any backlog, and the number of people who are part of this backlog; in Cork city or county. [45260/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The Department is committed to providing a quality customer service. 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. Every effort is being made to process claims in local offices as quickly as possible. This includes the prioritisation of work, assignment of additional resources including staffing and overtime. 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. A separate staffing exercise was carried out for Cork taking into account the opening of the Carrigaline office. This identified the need for an additional 12 staff in Cork City and 4 in Carrigaline.

Branch Offices are operated under a contract for service and decisions on claims taken in Branch Offices are made in its departmental parent Local Office. The following table gives details of the Live Register figures for each of the offices in County Cork together with the number of Jobseeker's Benefit and Jobseeker's Allowance claims awaiting a decision: