Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 315: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the processing time for the one-parent family payment scheme for applicants at each of the social welfare offices in Navan, Kells and Trim in County Meath; her plans to reduce this time; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8696/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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There has been a substantial increase in the number of people applying for one parent family payment and other social welfare payments in recent months. As a result there has been an increase in the average time for processing claims. However, staff in social welfare offices have been working extremely hard to process claims as quickly as possible.

The average processing times for one parent family applications which were decided between 1st January 2008 and 31st January 2009 in respect of social welfare offices in Navan, Kells and Trim were 15.3 weeks, 12.3 weeks and 12.5 weeks respectively. The Social Welfare Local Office in Navan is dealing with a very significant increase in the number of persons registering as unemployed as well as an increase in one parent family claims.

The Department has put a range of measures in place to speed up claim processing. Five new staff have been assigned to Navan Local Office since the beginning of the year and a further two temporary clerical officers are to take up duty in the next week. Temporary staff have been deployed to fill any staff vacancies pending the appointment of permanent staff. A special team from several other Social Welfare offices was deployed on 14 February 2009 to reduce claim backlogs in Navan Local Office. A number of Regional Local Office Support Units are being established for the purpose of alleviating backlogs. Deployment of staff to these units has begun and offices like Navan Local Office will benefit from their assistance in the coming weeks. All measures to improve processing times are being reviewed on a continuous basis.